Coming of Age
by K. Therese
Summary: Seto Kaiba and Tea Gardner/Anzu Mazaki are teenagers, with teenage urges, confusions, and fears. As Kaiba's desires and painful memories threaten his sense of control, Tea's compassion and innocence are strained and tainted by her rage toward Kaiba.
1. Late Bloomer

As you all know, I do not own Yu-gi-oh or any of its characters. Anzu/Tea bashers—just pretend this doesn't exist.

Late Bloomer

Seto Kaiba was a late bloomer. He didn't masturbate until he was seventeen.

An anthropologist might joke that the ruthless, _uberkind_ CEO believed, like an ancient warrior or a modern athlete, that his power was in his semen, and he must not waste it. It would probably be more correct to say that he distanced himself from his body as a coping mechanism, using his 150- point IQ as a defense against insecurity, shame, and loss of control. He certainly carried his own share of shame. Perhaps this would have worked forever, if we believe astrology, if Kaiba had been an Aquarius, the intellectual ruler of the ankles, or a workaholic Capricorn, and just had problems with his knees.

But Kaiba was a Scorpio. Scorpio rules life, death, and rebirth. Scorpio rules the genitals.

Sometimes, Kaiba's genitals rose up against him. Sometimes, he would wake up with his pajama pants sticky from his thighs to his belly button, his penis pointing toward his chin. Sometimes, his crotch would throb and burn--but he always was able to squelch the urge, the itch, back down. It was like putting off taking a piss until his two -hour meeting was over, or not pulling his underwear out of the crack of his ass during a press conference. If it wouldn't go away in ten minutes or so, then he would go for a swim or a run, followed by a frigid shower. It was under control.

One night, shortly before Gozaburo had been disgraced, Kaiba had gone into the supply room for more printer ink. He hadn't wanted to waste time by sending an assistant, he wasn't used to barking orders just yet, and simply asking people to do things made him uncomfortable, so, he did as much as he could by himself. On the table were two magazines left by an employee—maybe the janitor, maybe the accountant, Crump. One of the magazines was open to a two-page spread of a blonde woman wearing nothing but a pair of high heels. Her nipples were pink and hard, and her hands were between her legs, and she was holding herself open, so Kaiba could look inside her.

With hitching heaves, Kaiba came in his pants so hard he almost blacked out.

After he got his breath and vision back, Kaiba pinched a corner of the magazine between his thumb and forefinger and carried it to the shredder, his stomach churning. He felt the wetness in his pants, and felt his skin prickle and burn. He felt like he was dissolving. Tears were threatening.

After he shredded the magazine, he ran up to the bathroom, turned on the water as cold as it could get, and scrubbed himself with a pumice stone and a boar hair brush, including on his scrotum. He expected to see his pores dotted with blood, but his skin just turned bright pink, as pink as the girl's….

NO DON'T THINK ABOUT IT DON'T THINK ABOUT IT DON'T THINK ABOUT IT DON'T THINK DON'T NO….

He turned the knob until the water went from freezing to almost scalding, and stood under it, his eyes streaming.


	2. Panties

Yu-gi-oh is owned by Kazuki Takahashi. I have tried to make the characters as accurate as possible.

Panties

Tea Gardner was innocent, energetic, and cheerful. She was feminine—a ballerina who loved to look at pretty clothes—but tough enough to be friends with Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor. An astrologer would describe her as the quintessential Leo—friendly, proud, with a gift for communication—sometimes too good, as she tended to over explain events as they were happening, a habit that made her occasionally insufferable to some—and a penchant for performance. But she was also a moon in Libra--a peacemaker who craved connection on a mental as well as an emotional level. Libra is the sign of romantic relationships, and of couples, and Tea would reach her full potential, according to astrologers, when she found her soul mate.

At the ripe age of fifteen, Tea felt that she had already found this soul mate, in the spirit currently residing in her best friend, Yugi. She didn't know where this spirit came from originally, or how old he was, or even his name, and neither did he. She hoped to help him find out about himself. As she showered after dance class, her muscles loose and her skin glowing, she would pretend her hands were the spirit's, and hear the spirit's murmurs in the rushing water. In bed, she would touch herself, shyly and tenderly. She had learned about sex through romance novels, so it was rose red and snow white; men were quietly forceful, like a rushing river, and women always put up a bit of a fight before submitting to hard muscle and fiery sunsets. She had surmised that the spirit was from Egypt, and she was certain that he had been a very powerful person. The prospect of laughing and strolling hand-in-hand by the Nile with the spirit was just as arousing a prospect as lovemaking on a sumptuous royal chamber's feather bed. It would be nice to have a name to go with her fantasies, but for now, Yami Yugi worked just fine.

She was dreaming about this—sitting by the Nile River, watching crocodiles and cranes, Yami's arm around her shoulder—as she lay on the grass by the schoolyard, in the shade of a cherry blossom. Her friends were sprawled around her—Joey and Tristan on their bellies, Yugi sitting in a half-lotus between them. Joey and Yugi were teaching Tristan how to duel in a good-cop bad-cop tag-team—with Joey mocking, and Yugi warm and encouraging.

Seto Kaiba, walking by, noticed two things –one, that Yugi would sometimes gaze at Tea with a simpering look, and two, that Tea's skirt was up around her upper thighs.

This gave him pause.

He let his eyes roll over her body. Her dainty ankles were crossed, and her pale feet were elegantly pointed. He could see the calluses on the balls of her feet and her heels. Her calf muscles curved out in a slight smooth arc. His eyes went over her slightly bony knees and her thin, muscular thighs.

He moved so that he was still out of their sight line, but he could get a better look between her legs. She arched her back a bit and uncrossed her ankles. He let his gaze linger over her thighs. Even with her knees touching, her thighs didn't meet. There was always a perfect, teardrop shape between them.

_Her legs are always open_, he thought.

His heart thumped.

Tea crossed her ankles again, stretched her arms over her head, and yawned. Her belly was concave. Kaiba could see that even as her stomach dipped and made a valley between the bony hills of her hips, the waist of her skirt stayed stiffly suspended in the air, a sky blue rainbow, before her stomach rose again to greet it. Her uniform jacket was off, and through the thin fabric he could read the lines of her rib cage, the delicate glyphs of her collarbones where they joined to meet her shoulders. Her neck was thin and pale, her arms as light and graceful as feathers. Her breasts swelled from her chest and pointed upward. She moved again, and he spied the lace of her bra peeping out between the buttons.

His heart was galloping. Blood surged with so much force he could feel the artery in his stomach pulsing.

Tea raised one knee to scratch at an itch on her shin with her big toe. Her skirt fell and pooled over her groin.

Joey and Tristan did not notice. Yugi looked, and then turned away, his face burning red. Tea's eyes were closed, her black lashes almost downy.

Her panties had strawberries on them. Under those innocent strawberry panties was a beckoning mystery. Kaiba could make out the shape of her mound, all the parts he didn't know and couldn't name. He could see the slice of skirt -shadow on her inner thigh, perfectly peach, and the fork where her thigh joined her body—go north, reach her hip; go south, and follow the curving slope to her tight little ass.

Kaiba squeezed his eyes shut and bit his bottom lip. The artery in his cock was pulsing, leaving him light headed. The fabric of his pants was excruciatingly rough.

Realizing what she was doing, Tea sat upright, yanking down her skirt. She ran her hands over her smooth brown hair from the scalp to the shoulders. Grass fell on her lap, and she violently brushed it away.

Kaiba turned and walked off, breathing deeply and trying not to stumble. He walked until he was behind a dumpster. The smell of vinegar felt like needles in his mucus membranes. He looked around for a rock, a stick—there was a rock. A gray fist clenched on the ground.

He picked it up and slammed it into his crotch. Again, and again, and again, until he was doubled over, gasping and coughing.

"Little whore," he rasped. Saliva filled his mouth. He spit. The spit pooled around the toes of his shoes. He swallowed back bile. "They've all had her. They've all fucked her."


	3. Angels

Yu-gi-oh and all associated characters are owned by Kazuki Takahashi.

Angels

Kaiba remembered his mother's smile. He hasn't thought about it in years. He hadn't had time to think about a smile that he hadn't seen in a decade (was it more now?), not when he had to think about survival, both his and Mokuba's.

He couldn't sleep that night, not after seeing Tea Gardner's panties. Whenever he began to fall into sleep, his cock would begin to rise, and he would have to punch it down. Not enough to make himself sick, but enough so he would wince and double over, and yet it still stiffened and pointed accusingly at his face.

He got out of bed and sat at his computer. He opened up an image of the Blue Eyes White Dragon. He had a dream once about Blue Eyes, only in the dream, it wasn't a dragon; it was a girl, a young girl with long, white hair. She was an angel, just like his mother. He could have gazed and gazed at the girl forever. She wasn't human; she was better than human, and infinitely more precious. In the dream, he knew she needed to be protected until she reached her full potential, and he was her protector.

But even though he was her protector, it wouldn't be for long. She was better than he was. Inside her was power and glory beyond his understanding. Soon, she would protect HIM.

He stared at the Blue Eyes, at its clean lines, at its powerful body; so different from the wisp of a girl it used to be. Perhaps the Blue Eyes was his mother, reincarnated. His mother did have blue eyes, after all, and had been very thin.

But that was utterly stupid. Reincarnation had no basis in scientific fact. It was absurd to think that his mother's soul, if souls existed, was residing in a laminated two inch by four-inch playing card.

Besides, his mother's hair wasn't WHITE. Not even CLOSE. Her hair was black, like Mokuba's. And she was small like Mokuba, too. But her eyes were Seto's, and so was her pale skin. Those two things were the only things that he received from his mother. He had been his father's son in all other ways.

His throat closed up, and his temples throbbed. The sensations came so fast that he thought he was dying. His doctor had even told him that his blood pressure was inching toward the high mark. He had been getting migraines that left him typing at his laptop in bed, with his trashcan next to him, in case he had to vomit. Perhaps this was an aneurism, or a ruptured ulcer. He was sweating, so it could even be a heart attack, or a stroke.

He touched his face and realized it wasn't sweat, but tears. He was crying. He wasn't dying, he was just sad.

He laid his head on his desk and curled his arm around it. He might as well be dead, if anyone ever saw him like this.


	4. Tea's Snappy Comeback

Tea's Snappy Come-Back

Tea laughed a lot. She laughed at her friends, she laughed at birds and squirrels playing outside the window, she laughed in English class when Bottom was transformed into a donkey.

When she laughed, she closed her eyes and tilted her head to one side. When something was funny enough, she threw her arms around herself, just like Seto's mother. When Tea laughed, Kaiba turned away, his guts a coil of steel wire being rolled around a spool.

Right now, Tea was giggling about how badly Yugi was beating Joey. Kaiba sat and read Nietzsche's _Icce Homo_ for the second time. He loved Nietzsche. After all, he was the _uberkind,_ and he was becoming the _ubermensch_. He never paid attention in school, because he truly could see no point in his being there except to be a positive influence for Mokuba, just in case he didn't want anything to do with Kaiba Corp. Most days Kaiba just bided his time, seeing it as a break from the demands of being a CEO, as a time to catch up on reading, and, most importantly, to observe Yugi's technique.

He loved watching Yugi duel. He loved LISTENING to Yugi duel. Yugi was brilliant, and that's what made Kaiba nearly insane. He had to defeat Yugi, and not just defeat him, but make him cry in self-pity over Kaiba's superiority, or beg him to teach him his tricks, at which Kaiba would smirk and say that it would be a waste of time, throw in another cutting remark, and then turn smoothly away. The little dwarf with the freaky hair should be so easy to destroy, he thought. Really, he was so goofy looking. He was so small. Sure, Yugi beat everybody else, but he couldn't beat Kaiba. It was ludicrous to think so.

The game was ended. Yugi was the winner, of course. Kaiba had been taking mental notes, an easy thing to do as Yugi was explaining to Tristan and Joey his every move, and Tea, of course, felt the need to put Yugi's explanation in her own words. Her legs were slender and sleek under her skirt, tapering in her knee socks into her school shoes. Her skirt was loose around the small of her back and then draped from the slope of her ass in an elegant fall of fabric. Tristan, the kid with the hair that could double as a railroad spike, put his hand on Tea's shoulder and guided her to a corner of the room away from Yugi and Joey. The spot he chose to have his tête-à-tête with Tea was right near where Kaiba was sitting. Kaiba clenched his teeth and buried his nose further into _Icce Homo_. Was she wearing perfume? Orange scented perfume? How perfectly childish.

"Have you gotten Joey's present yet, Tea?"

"Almost," Tea's voice sounded discouraged. How unusual. "I'm still short a few dollars."

"How much? Maybe I can spot you."

"No, no, Tristan. I'll just pick up some extra chores around the house and a couple more hours at the diner."

"Tea, you don't get paid until next Friday. The party is this Saturday. Just let me spot you. You can pay me back, or we can make it a joint gift or something."

"Thanks, Tristan, but I never borrow money from friends. Besides, you already have your gift for Joey. I kind of want to give him one of my own."

Kaiba rolled his eyes. Jesus Christ, just let him loan you the money, he thought. You can always fuck for it later. The thought made him snort with mirth. He could feel Tea and Tristan's eyes turn to him.

"_Anyway,"_ Tea said after a little pause, "I'll manage, Tristan. Don't worry. I don't want you to have to spend any more money. You need to start saving, too, you know."

Kaiba turned in his chair. "Gardner, do you mind meddling at a lower volume? I'm trying to read, and it's really distracting."

Tea looked taken aback for a moment, then she smirked right back at Kaiba.

"That's a real bitch, Kaiba. Why don't you buy some gold-plated ear plugs?"

Everyone heard her and stared. Tristan doubled over, as much from shock as paroxysms of laughter. .

Joey Wheeler, the mutt, walked over, his hand in his pocket. He pulled something out and flipped it at Kaiba. It landed on his desk with a rattling tinkle. It was a shiny quarter.

"A little something for the ear plugs, rich boy. Don't spend it all in one place."

Everyone lost it then, even Bakura, the white haired weakling. Barely suppressed snorts and chortles bounced throughout the room. Their joy at seeing him humiliated outshone their fear of him.

Kaiba calmly picked up his briefcase and walked out of the room, already plotting his revenge against Wheeler, Gardner, Taylor, and Yugi too, for good measure. Just as he put his hand on the knob to leave the classroom, he glanced back at Gardner. She wasn't laughing anymore. She was biting her lip, her eyes large and pleading and moist with guilt. The corner of Kaiba's lip twitched and she flinched slightly. An idea was fertilized and quickened in Kaiba's head. He raised his head and gazed down at her over his nose. Then he turned and left.

He felt like he was stepping off a cliff.


	5. The Purpose of a Young Girl's Body

A Young Girl's Body

Tea felt guilty the rest of the day. She didn't know what got into her—maybe it was the thought of working extra hours at the restaurant, or the big test she had to study for, or the fact she didn't have a present for the birthday of one of her best friends, or she was getting her period, or she was hurt because, ever since she got breasts, her father wouldn't hug her anymore.

Be that as it may, she thought, it was still no excuse to hurt anyone's feelings. Even Kaiba, who was a jerk, was still a person and deserved some consideration.

She wondered if she should apologize to him, or how. Kaiba was intimidating. The way he looked at her today…she had to find some way to appease him, or he could really cause trouble for her, or worse, for her friends.

In the shower that night, she scrubbed herself as briefly as possible, only scrubbing her hair and face, and letting the rushing hot water take care of the rest. Her body felt too curvy, too conspicuous, too dangerous. As she toweled off, she was embarrassed to look at herself in the mirror, and embarrassed to look down at her nudity, so she toweled off with her eyes closed, only opening them when she had on her nightgown. Her nightgown was baby blue and had lavender stars and yellow moons scattered all over it. It was a little girl's nightgown, but her breasts still rose underneath it, more fitted for a stripper's teddy than for sweet sleepwear. But Tea's body didn't match anything else about her—not her teddy bears, not her stubborn fear of the dark, not her wish that she could sit on her parents' laps again. Only Yugi understood this, and she loved him for it. But the spirit inside Yugi was a man, inside her best friend's body, and that made the spirit safe, and she loved the spirit for that.

Kaiba was a man, too. He was tall, and he had that presence that only a man could have—self-assured, powerful. His eyes were also different from the other boys' eyes. They were hard, and deep, and knowing. She had noticed that, recently, and it made her nervous. That gym teacher was a man, and he was going to hurt her, until Yugi had tried to save her, and the spirit saved them both. Whenever she thought about what that man would have done to her, she thought about Yugi and the spirit, and how they saved her, and she felt such a swelling of love she wanted to both laugh and cry.

When she had gone to Pegasus' island with her friends for that tournament, she had felt absolutely safe having their bodies near hers. They were good guys. They didn't feel lust, only love. Whenever they talked about other women, it was just a joke.

One time, she had steeled herself up and asked Tristan if he had ever wanted to make out with her.

"Make out with who?" Tristan had asked.

"Me, Tristan." She was already sorry she brought it up.

"WHAT with you?"

That was actually the easiest one. Joey had just laughed. "It would be like sucking face with my sister," he had said. She hadn't even dared to ask Yugi—he was so innocent. The spirit would probably want nothing to do with her, but would let her down gently.

Without desire, there is security, she concluded, so she didn't mind sleeping next to the boys on the sweet-smelling grass. Bakura had been there, too, but she wasn't sure if he even had ANY sexual feelings at all, despite, or maybe because of, his angelic beauty. HIS spirit had bigger fish to fry, what with trying to send them all to the shadow realm and all. There was one person that scared her on that trip, even more than Pegasus, and that was Bandit Keith.

It wasn't because he had waved a gun in Pegasus' face, or that he had a violent temper, the fact that his knuckles were scarred, or that she could see white lines along the veins of his arm. It was because of what happened during Joey's duel with that zombie kid, Bonz. She had looked over at Keith, while the boys were engaged in the game, just to glare at him for being such a coward. He took off his sunglasses, and his glazed blue eyes ran over her body, slowly. He groped her with his gaze. When his eyes returned to her face, he smiled, his tongue running over his sharp teeth. Then he puckered his lips and kissed at her. She turned quickly away and kept watching the duel. When Keith trapped them in the cave, she felt relieved. She thought he had forgotten all about her.

Later, at the dinner Pegasus hosted, one of the wait staff handed her a drink, along with a wrinkled, neatly folded piece of paper. Then he walked away without a word.

She looked at the paper and glanced around the table. Nobody else had seen. She opened it. It was a receipt from a liquor store, for Boone's Farm and Trojans, purchased by Keith Howard.

Scrawled all over the receipt, at the top and bottom white spaces and over the fading purple printer ink, Keith had written her a note. The ink was a dark, dark blue. The handwriting slanted to the right.

_I'm gonna suck the tits right off of you, sweetheart. I hope you can take a big, all-American cock, honey, because if I catch you alone on this island, I'm gonna make you moan. I'm gonna get a serving of your sweet cherry pie, pretty baby, I don't give a fuck if it's ready to come out of the oven or not. I'm gonna POUND your hot little ass. So brace yourself. _

Tea balled the note up in her clammy fist, as much to stop herself from shaking as to hide it from her sight. She thought she could feel his sweat on it, his fingerprints, his sloughed off skin cells still clinging to it, and she dropped it to the floor. She could feel his eyes on her, glazed and blue and probing. She felt his smile, sharp and wide, his chapped lips stretched tight, as much as if they were pressed into her cheek. She felt like she could be sick, like she WANTED to be sick, but she didn't want to humiliate herself, and she didn't want to distract her friends from the following tournament.

She had seen Bandit Keith's eyes before, on the gym teacher's face, and that smile, no, not a smile, she would not debase the sweet sunshine that beamed from Yugi and Joey and Tristan's faces by using the word smile. It was a rictus on the faces of the former gym teacher and Bandit Keith. She had been relieved when Keith was thrown into the ocean below the mansion.

Just thinking about it now, in her bedroom with her posters of New York and ballerinas, made her palms sweat. She clutched her hairbrush the way she clutched the note.

Keith, if he was still alive, could forget about Tea, but Tea would never be able to forget him, or the gym teacher, even after the gym teacher was put in jail for attempted rape. They both had taught her something. They had taught her that her body was a whore's body, a body meant to be used and then forgotten. Her body was a body that no nice boy, like her friends, would ever want anything to do with, or anything her father would want to hug. It was bait for sleaze.

Only when she was with her friends, who didn't notice her body, or when dancing, when she could feel her strength and grace, could Tea feel totally comfortable in her skin. Those were the only times she wasn't aware of the fleshy tumors growing out of her rib cage.

She climbed into bed and clutched her teddy bear. She wished she could talk to Mai again. She felt Mai could clear some things up. Even if she wanted to, Tea couldn't imagine what those men would have done to her, if they had caught her alone. It was a dark, frightening mystery, and yet, in spite of herself, she sometimes wondered what the solution would be.


	6. A Precocious Boy

A Precocious Boy

Seto Kaiba reclined on his bed, propped with pillows, his laptop on his belly. He told himself that he really did have to check the graphs of the projected budget for his Battle City project, and he had to e-mail those graphs to the mayor, and the mayor was antsy because they were nearing deadline, but while he did these things, he was really putting off the research he needed to do. He didn't know what was more shameful—what he was gearing himself up to do, or that he was procrastinating about it.

There was a knock on his door, the maid with his tea. "Come in," he said.

Behind the silver teapot, the silver pitchers of honey and cream, two china mugs and, wonder of wonders, two china saucers of raspberry chocolate cake, was Mokuba's bluegrass eyes and wide smile. Kaiba was glad he had put off the research.

"Hey, Seto!" Mokuba carefully placed the tray on the bedside table, and then plopped down on the bed. He lifted the tea -pot and began to pour the tea. Mint and Jasmine steam twisted lazily toward the ceiling, braiding and unbraiding. "How was your day?"

"It went rather well," Seto said. "How was your day?"

Mokuba handed Kaiba a cup of tea, then stood up and unzipped his sleeveless jacket. Under the jacket, layered over his blue and white striped shirt, was an AC/DC t-shirt.

"I don't know how we both lived without them for so long, Seto. They're fucking awesome."

"Intelligent people don't use those words, Mokuba."

"What about George Carlin?"

_George Carlin? _

"Anyway, Seto, I would never use those words in school."

"See that you don't."

Mokuba poured and stirred copious amounts of honey and cream into his tea with the deftness of a barista in a Moroccan bazaar. "I'm twelve years old now, Seto. People my age use those words, and listen to AC/DC. They also date."

Kaiba blew a stream of steam at Mokuba. "Date, you say?"

"Yes. And Seto, there's no easy way to say this, so I just will. I'm thinking about starting to date."

"Good. Keep thinking about it, because it won't happen."

"But Seto, it will. It will. It has to happen sometime. I'm already thinking about possible candidates and activities for each one."

"The only girl you're allowed to hang out with, not date, hang out with, is that Rachel Hawkins girl."

"But she's nine. And she's Rebecca, not Rachel."

"She's very mature. "

"How would you know? You can't even get her name right."

"Doesn't she have an IQ of 170? She's already been accepted into three Ivy League schools."

"Seto, she listens to Miley Cyrus."

Mokuba rewarded himself for that parry with a forkful of the moist cake.

"Alright, Mokuba. You may date. However, it must be with at least one other peer, and it must be in a public place, or at least at a home with parents present."

"Thanks, Seto." Mokuba washed down another mouthful of fudge and raspberry with tea. "You know, you should think about dating, too. It will help you relax. Besides, maybe we could even double date."

"I'm far too busy, Mokuba."

"Come on, Seto, it has to happen sometime. You're getting up there. There're plenty of girls at your school who would like to date you. "

"I don't think so, Mokuba."

"Seto, you, of all people, should not be shy about girls."

Kaiba's fists tightened around his teacup. What a stupid, condescending thing to say. Was Mokuba joking? Didn't he remember? Didn't he know?

Of course he wouldn't remember. He certainly wouldn't know. Kaiba had seen to that. His fists relaxed.

"Plus, you're a pretty handsome guy, not that I would know, this is just what the reporters say. Lots of girls would want to have sex with you."

Kaiba spasmed and his tea bubbled around his lips. He dabbed at his mouth and chin with a napkin and hoped he hadn't betrayed his aura of detached competence.

"How would you know anything about that subject, pray tell?"

"Seto, I'm twelve. Haven't you been listening? I'm surprised you know enough about it to know what I was talking about."

Kaiba's fatherly side was put on the back burner for a moment, a brief moment, and the big brother who must be the best came forward. "I know more than YOU."

Mokuba snorted into his tea. "Doubt it."

Kaiba remembered his research, and his role as father figure. "Go to bed, Mokuba."

Mokuba, who just last week begged for just one more game, one more movie, one more piece of cake, who just two years ago (Two years? No, it was just LAST year) pled for just one more bedtime story, just one more chapter, simply stood and stretched. He strutted to the door, then turned around and faced Kaiba.

"I know what a rainbow party is, Seto. Do you?"

And with that, he turned and walked out, closing he door gently behind him.

Kaiba got up and moved the tray of crumbs, raspberry smears, and dregs of shredded tea leaves into the hallway. He locked the door behind him. He brushed his teeth, flossed, and gargled. He turned off all the lights.

His laptop glowed icy blue in the darkness. He changed into a clean t-shirt and flannel pants. He might as well be comfortable in that regard.  
He put the laptop back on his belly and began his research.


	7. Kaiba Meets a Milestone

Kaiba Meets a Milestone

Kaiba skipped school the next day. He had to assimilate all he had learned the night before. He had learned so much. He had even learned about the rainbow parties, and he had decided that Mokuba should not date, even in a group, perhaps especially not in a group.

He educated himself in a very branching, but linear fashion. He started out with just entering the word "sex" into a database. He learned about the mechanics of sex, how people performed this action, and he learned the different names for it: the generic scientific—sexual intercourse; the Latin—coitus; the violent—fucking; the sanitized and silly—screwing and humping; and the romantic—making love. And those were only the major names for it; there was so much slang it boggled the mind. Kaiba's favorite was Le Petite Morte—French for "the Little Death." It was perfect for his subconscious Scorpio sensibilities.

From there, he learned about the types of sex—missionary, doggie style, oral, anal (which, he hated to admit, intrigued as well as disgusted him), standing up, the dry hump, fisting. He followed this train of thought to cunnilingus, fellatio, analingus (which, on the whole, he did not want to try right off the bat). He read about masturbation. Male masturbation was interesting. Kaiba felt a little smug that he had guessed how it was done, even though he hadn't done it, and his guess turned out be correct. At the same time, it was a blow to his status as a prodigy: the articles had said the average age for males to start masturbating was thirteen. It didn't matter; the explanation of how females pleasured themselves was so absorbing he read it three times. This led to an article on female anatomy, complete with visual aids, where Kaiba learned about the uterus, the ovaries, the cervix, the vagina, the hymen, the vulva, the mons, the labias majora and minora, the g-spot, and the clitoris, He mouthed these words over and over, a magic incantation, until he memorized them.

He studied the mysteries of menstruation. How many women did he talk to on a daily basis that were bleeding without him knowing it, without it even changing their routine?

He also studied his own body, and all the parts he didn't know he had, with names that were appropriately masculine: the vas deferens, the testicles, the scrotum, and the glans. He learned all the different words for the fluid that he sometimes found pooled around the creases of his groin and matting his pubic hair in the morning. Out of the three names that stuck out in his mind—semen, sperm, jizzum—he liked sperm the best, with the sibilant S, the plosive P, and how the liquid R and nasal M oozed past his lips in a chesty growl. It sounded powerful and dangerous, like a viper, or a scorpion. He even found a song called "Spit Sperm," by a band called KMFDM, and he listened to it six times in a row. It was playing in his head as he leaned his sleep-sweaty forehead against the tiles of his shower and closed his burning eyes.

He hadn't fallen asleep until six a.m. Mokuba had to go to school alone today, and was picked up by only Roland and Richards, the chauffer. Kaiba didn't wake up until three in the afternoon, and was still drowsy. His dreams had wrenched him from one extreme to the other, pleasure followed pain followed pleasure as quickly as cars on a bullet train speeding by a station; shame and joy braided together like the mint and jasmine fragrances of last night's tea.

He opened his eyes. The sandwich he had requested should be outside his room, as per his instructions. He continued to stare for a few moments, trying to remember the dreams.

He remembered his mother combing his hair. He was a child. He had had this dream before. His mother wore ballet slippers, her feet elegantly pointed. Her belly, swollen with Mokuba, kept him from sitting completely on her lap, but she had him securely between her legs, and he felt safe.

Then she was gone.

He was outside in the glaring sunlight, being sprayed with icy water. He could feel the eyes of millions upon him. Shit smeared the ground around him. Piles a foot high oozed a horrible brownish liquid that sped toward his feet. Everyone blamed him for the shit. He wanted to scream that it wasn't his, but he couldn't get his mouth to move. And Mokuba was under a heavy net, and they were making him watch Kaiba's humiliation. He was strapped to Mokuba, and Mokuba and his heavy net were pulling him down into the shit. His knees were buckling. His mouth was getting closer and closer to the foulness on the ground.

Then they were coming at him with matches. They were going to burn him. They were lashing him with straps—each strap was a striking snake.

He turned into a beast—his hair thickened, his muscles hardened, his teeth lengthened, and with a surge of euphoria he ripped them to shreds, saw their blood spray the walls, and heard their screams. He opened his eyes, and they radiated blue light, light so cold it burned. Between his teeth was Gozaburo's neck. He blinked, and the light faded away.

Then he was naked on a stone floor, in front of an altar, and floating in front of the altar was the angel with the white hair. She reached out and stroked his face, and then took him into her arms. He remembered her long white cotton gown, and her silky hair. She lifted him up into a pure, white horrible light, and he realized he was being knighted. Then he looked up at her, and she was no longer a girl, but a dragon—a silvery white, steely dragon with blue eyes. He mounted her, and she took him flying over a desert, over a city, over churning waters capped with semen foam.

He might have ejaculated in his sleep then. He wasn't sure. He felt like he had come so many times that his blood had thinned, and his muscles were starved for oxygen. He might have come when Gozaburo's throat was between his teeth, or while he was dreaming what happened next. Probably all three times; after all, what may have happened in the span of only a few minutes in dreamtime may have taken hours in the real world. His sheets were soaked down to the mattress pad with a puddle of sperm. He had scrubbed at it until he had tennis elbow.

He turned off the water and listened to the drips pattering on the tile.

Her eyes had been so large, and bright, and blue. Her navel was tiny—a dimple, really. Her legs were golden. Her ribs stood out sharply whenever she breathed in; she was so slender. But her breasts were plump and curved upward. He could see that even though her arms were crossed over them. She wore only her strawberry panties. The eyes that had stared at him in his shit-covered shame stared at him as he strode toward Tea Gardner and pulled her to the ground. They saw him penetrate her on an obelisk of stone, and they knew that he was the master and the champion.

Now, what was under those strawberry panties was no longer a mystery. He knew its many names, and it was his choice what to call it. Would it be the dirty, hard cunt, or the soft, inviting pussy?

He grabbed his cock and slowly, timidly stroked it. They rose before his eyes again, with their matches and their belts, but this time, he wasn't going to give in to them. He wasn't going to listen when they screamed at him, called him names, and gave lurid descriptions of his soul. He had already destroyed them.

"Fuck you," he hissed between his teeth. He was trembling. Tears were running down his burning cheeks, but the shame was now diluted with defiance. "Fuck you both." His hand sped up. He jerked hard on his penis, so hard it burned. He remembered the wrecking ball swinging in its terrible, nonchalant arc into the leprous brick of the orphanage, the inflamed red and yellow falling in and exploding out. He remembered plunging them into poverty with just a phone call and a smirk, all the while imagining the looks on their faces and wishing he could be there to see them fall apart. Maybe that's why they stuck around and tormented him after all these years—he simply didn't have the closure of seeing their pain firsthand.

But he could watch Tea fall apart. Tea would beg, and cry, and plead too, but not with her mouth. He would silence that. Her eyes, those big, liquid, and eerily familiar blue eyes, would do all the talking. Her eyes and her warm, wet tightness would speak after he took her words away.

With a gasp, he fell in and exploded out. Sperm sprayed the marble walls of the shower and seeped over his fist.

It was the first time he had ever consciously masturbated.

Kaiba slumped against the wall. He lifted his hand and gazed at the mucus-like smears that contained his DNA. He knew what he would do tomorrow. After all, anything holding him back happened a long time ago. Nobody could punish him now. Who was Tea Gardner, anyway? She was only a silly little girl, a cheerleader for Yugi, a thing of absolutely no use to him on a financial or intellectual level. She was no challenge. She didn't even duel. Did he feel shame for using a tissue to blow his nose?

The thought occurred to him that Yugi and the mutt and the other guy with the horrifying hair had fucked Tea Gardner already, and the thought enraged him. It enraged him that they had gotten pleasure from a woman, pleasure that he, Kaiba, had never had. The fact that they were now men in a way that he wasn't angered him. He was superior in every way. How could they have something that he didn't? How could a woman choose them, and not him?

He would have to rectify this situation.

He could—WOULD—do whatever he wanted to her, with no shame. She was nothing, nothing at all.


	8. Striking a Deal

Striking a Deal

Tea was counting down the days until her two weeks were up and she was done with the diner. She was going to start teaching part time at the dance studio. She would teach the little girls. She liked kids, and she loved to dance, and she would be paid for it. It would look great on her applications. She felt as if this was a step toward the Promised Land.

Sometimes, she wondered if Kaiba liked his job. He had money, he had power, but did he want to spring out of bed every morning? Did he smile just thinking about it? Tea saw no sign of happiness in Kaiba, or even genuine confidence. People who were genuinely proud didn't have to be so sarcastic. Sometimes she wondered if he hated himself.

She still hadn't gotten Joey's birthday gift, but she was close. It was a figurine of his favorite duel monster, the Flame Swordsman. It was eight inches tall, and amazingly detailed. It cost eighty dollars, and Tea now had $58. She was confident she could make the rest tonight, after she cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen for her parents. Life was good.

There was still the matter of Kaiba, though. She wanted to apologize, but she didn't know what to say; she was afraid he would rip her to shreds. She supposed that she could bring her friends alone, but she felt that Kaiba might feel ganged up on with her friends there, even if it would make her feel safe. No, it would have to be private, after school, by his locker.

Her stomach was full of frothy acid.

The last bell rang.

Kaiba stood up and left. The other students stayed seated until he was through the door. It was an unspoken agreement, a way to show respect to the most powerful person they knew.

Tea told Yugi that she would call him later. He just smiled and reassured her that it was okay. He, Joey, and Tristan were just going to practice dueling for a while, anyway. They walked her to her locker, and she watched them leave.

Her stomach ached more with each step they took away from her.

She put her books away, rechecked her syllabus and her assignment notebook, rearranged her bag. The population of the hallway shrank, until the hallway stood empty.

She swallowed and forced one foot in front of the other toward Kaiba's locker. Her knees were about to buckle. Just two words, she thought, just two words.

As she walked, she saw a figure turn down the hallway and walk towards her. The sun shone through the floor to ceiling window, silhouetting the tall, thin body.

It was Seto Kaiba. Her heart jolted and galloped in her chest.

He stopped in front of her. She could see his eyes now, arctic oceans set in his face, giving her permission to speak. How did he know that she wanted to talk to him?

"Um, Ka-Kai—' She swallowed and tried again. "K-Kaiba, I just wanted to say, um, I, a couple of days ago—"

He kept starting down at her, a stone Inquisitor. How could she be so stupid? He didn't remember anything she said to him. He paid as much attention to her as he would to a buzzing fly.

"Well, anyway, what I said was very rude. I mean, I said 'bitch' and all…" She struggled to keep eye contact, but her eyes kept jumping to his chest or one of his shoulders or his forehead. She corralled her eyeballs back from his ear to his eyes, then finally gave up and settled on his right eyebrow.

"I'm sorry," she forced out.

For a moment, no one spoke. Tea stared hard at his collarbone. She realized that his jacket was unbuttoned and loose, and he had a plain, white cotton t-shirt underneath it. Around his neck was a Duel Monsters card suspended from a chain. Probably the Blue Eyes, she thought. He swallowed, and she watched his throat contract and relax. She lifted her eyes a little bit to his mouth. He ran the tip of his tongue over his lower lip. Her pelvis and inner thighs muscles felt funny, like her blood had thickened there. She squelched a shudder.

"Gardner," he said, "I actually found it rather impressive."

Tea blinked. Did she hear him right?

"However," he continued, "your apology is making it less so. Don't you know you should never, ever say you're sorry? Don't you know it makes you weak?"

She tilted her head to look at his eyes. They had a strange glow to them, the glow that tints the clouds before a tornado. His lips curled up at the corners, and he kept swallowing what she assumed were laughs. He was mocking her, but it wasn't as bad as she thought it was going to be.

"I don't think it's weak to apologize, Kaiba," she said. "It took all the strength I had to talk to you."

His lips twitched, and his eyes seemed to glow brighter, like a street slicked with rain in a dome light.

"Gardner," he said. Was there a tremor in his voice? "Gardner," he repeated. "Have you bought the mu—Wheeler's gift yet?"

She tilted her head. She was puzzled, but she allowed herself to smile. "I'm almost there," she said. "It's a Flame Swordsman figurine. It's pretty amazing. I just need a few more dollars."

"I've seen that figurine. How much do you need?"

"I have $58. I'll have it all tonight, after I clean the kitchen and bathroom for my parents, and then I can get the Flame Swordsman tomorrow."

It was just like her to see the glass as half full, focusing on how far she had come, not how far she had to go. His annoyance at her optimism had changed to something different. Looking at her smile and her eyes made him feel a strange crackling in his ribs.

"I think I might have something for you to do, Gardner. I'll pay you for it. That way, you won't have to wait until tomorrow, and you won't have to clean."

She brushed her hair back from her forehead and pushed the ends over her shoulder. Her eyes narrowed. The shiny brown was warmed by the sunlight. Was that red he saw in her hair?

"Um, I…"

"The party's tomorrow, right? You want that figurine, or not?" His voice was sharp and hard. She flinched like he had struck her. She felt a sudden need to defend herself. "Of course I do!"

"Then take my offer." He reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out two bills. "Here's eleven dollars. I'll give you the rest later." He grabbed her wrist and put the bills into her hand. His palms were sweaty and hot, or was it just her? It was the first time a male other than a family member or friend had touched her. The energy was so different, so urgent and nervous. "It'll be really easy. A no-brainer."

"I can take a brainer," she said.

He bit his lower lip. Was he smiling? His eyes had that sheen again.

"Just come with me."


	9. Diving In

Diving In

He walked so swiftly she had to practically run to catch up. His legs were impossibly long. She felt so small next to him.

He turned a few corners until they came to the gymnasium. He pushed one of the heavy doors. It swung slowly until it gained momentum and slammed open with a bang. The sound made Tea jump. He went into the gym, and she followed.

He opened another door. It led to the room where the new gym teacher kept the balls and the jump ropes.

"Kaiba." Tea's voice was soft as the light that fell in Jacob's Ladders from the high windows. "What is it you want me to do?"

Kaiba turned to her. "I've already given you eleven dollars," he said quietly. His voice was hoarse. "I was under no obligation to do that, particularly to someone who disrespected me in front of my peers."

"I said I was sorry, and I meant it." A part of her wanted to get on her knees and beg him to let her go, but another part of her was terribly curious. "I can give you your money back."

"No." His voice was a growl. "I don't want it. I want you to get in here."

He was so close he could grab her arm and toss her into the room. She dared to glance quickly behind her. If she tried to run, he could catch up to her in three strides on his long legs. If something bad happened, she could kick him in the crotch, or punch him, or poke him in the eye, or bite him. That would buy her a little bit of time.

She hesitated. Kaiba touched her shoulder and drew her into the room. She allowed him to guide her in. Right when she set foot in the room, she knew something was going to happen, something incredible and horrible.

Kaiba slowly reached over her head and pulled a string. A bare light bulb flickered, a weak heart struggling to keep life pulsing through the body of the room. Kaiba closed the door behind them both. Tea looked at the ball rack, the valley ball net lying in a hemp puddle, and the slanting pile of foam filled mats in the back. She could smell the sweetness of plastic and the dusty musk of the mats; she could hear Kaiba breathing through his nose behind her, could feel the heat rising off his long body.

"Close your eyes," he whispered. "Don't open them. Keep them shut."


	10. Kaiba's Fierce Tenderness

Kaiba's Fierce Tenderness

He was just as scared as she was, at first.

The first thing he did was feel for her eyelids with his fingertips, to make sure they were closed. They were. And they were wet. She was crying already. Her breath was a chain of hiccupping sobs. She was curling into herself from the head down. He didn't get it. He hadn't even done anything to her yet.

He pushed around her. The room began as a narrow rectangle and then opened into a broader square. That's when she saw an opportunity to run. She leaped backward and twirled around in the air, clawing at the door. It fell open and she ran, her legs a blur. She was fast, but she was right when she thought he could take her easily. He tackled her, and they both almost fell.

He grabbed her around the waist and felt her belly inflate to let loose a scream. He slapped a hand over her mouth. She squirmed and bucked in his arms as he dragged her back to the room. He yanked the door shut behind him. She jumped up and down, trying to slam her head into his face. He felt her teeth scrape his palm as she tried to bite him. Trails of fire blazed down his arms where she scratched him. The pain invigorated him, like a cold shower or his muscles' screams of protest during a workout, and he pressed down harder on the skittish colt in his arms.

"Calm down," he hissed into her ear. "Relax. CALM DOWN."

He feared he might have to use the gun in his briefcase on her.

He hoisted her up and carried her toward the foam mats. She was very light. That was his first surprise. He hadn't expected her to be so light. She was daintier than stocky, resilient Mokuba.

He lowered her onto the mats and took his hand from her mouth. She stopped crying then, probably because she wasn't breathing very well. Her air came in short gasps. She curled away from him, her body shaped into a stiff comma. He pulled her over onto her back and forced her legs down. He sat on her feet. When he tried to pull her hands away from her face, her whole body followed. He had to keep one hand on her shoulder and the other pulled her wrists. He was beginning to wonder if this was worth it. He looked down at her, at her eyelashes, her mouth, the curves of her cheeks. He touched her face.

Her skin was so creamy it literally took his breath away. He actually stopped breathing for a moment. That was his second surprise.

He flattened his hand on her forehead and ran it through her hair. Silk hair, satin skin. He cupped her cheek in his hand, and then slid it down her neck.

"Your skin is so soft," he murmured.

She inhaled sharply and bit her bottom lip.

He suddenly felt shy. He felt his face grow hot. His hips rocked back and forth. His cock pulsed. He crawled over her until he was lying down next to her. She smelled like oranges and strawberries, of course. Her smell reminded him of a Creamsicle. He slid an arm around her and held her tightly.

He laid his palm across one of her knees. It was bony and smooth. He let his hand roam up her inner thigh. So soft. He began to grind his crotch into her hip. She whimpered. Her long legs were stiff.

He rolled over until he was half on top of her, forcing his knee between her legs. He rocked back and forth, jimmying her open. Her leg felt so thin and fragile between his. He thrust his hips against her thigh.

She became very quiet, then. She even held her breath until she was forced to gasp for air. Her gasps were timed with his thrusts. His hands went through her hair, to her face, to her neck, to her thighs, and back again. He yanked her blouse up out of the waist of her skirt and slithered his hand over her belly. Every new part of her seemed smoother and more tender than the last.

For some reason, he couldn't bring himself to do more than run his fingertips over the cotton of her bra. For some reason, he didn't think he was ready, that it should be saved for later. But he did grip the hem of her skirt and drag it up her thighs to look at her panties. They were sky blue. He could see the slight rise of her mons and the way the fabric clung to her soft parts—what were they called?—oh yes, her labia. He let the skirt fall back over the panties and her parts. He didn't want to come yet.

He looked down at her face. Her eyes were wide open and wet. Was she the same between her thighs? He could see himself suspended in her pupils. His face was stark. His teeth were bared. He looked like he could be foaming at the mouth. He was a lion, a blood -thirsty lion, living up to the meaning of his name.

She remembered his instructions and covered her face with her hands.

He leaned over her, panting, one hand on the bony span between her breasts, the other still restraining her around her ribs. His hips hadn't stopped grinding on her. He felt something other than silken skin under his hands. It was a hard, fast thudding. It was her heart. He had made her heart beat faster. This galvanized him like nothing else.

"Please," she whispered. "Please, don't hurt me."

He rolled further on top of her and began to pump at her body, alternating straight in-out motions with circles of his hips. He dragged himself down her side until he buried his face into her hair. He thrust so hard the mat was sliding off the top of the stack. He didn't care. It was only three feet down.

His body tensed. He was melting, dissolving. Every molecule of his body, down to the nucleus, was humming with a powerful electric energy, a powerful heat.

When he came, his cry felt like a roar on his tongue. He arched his back, shouting his pleasure past the moisture spotted concrete of the ceiling to the sky. It was more than orgasm—it was a triumph.

He remained in that position for a few moments more, his hands squeezing her shoulders. He felt himself come back to the concrete room and the foam mats and the cooling stickiness in his pants, and he thought he could still hear the echo of his climax as it was absorbed into the walls, the floor, and the ceiling.

He came back to Tea. She still had her hands over her face. She was lying still and stiff underneath him. She reminded him of the people in Pompeii, frozen under the hardened lava of Vesuvius in whatever positions they were in when the volcano erupted.

He lowered himself down and rolled to the side so he could lie down next to her, her leg still trapped between his. The semen in his pants was filling him with anxiety. He squirmed out of his uniform jacket, unzipped his pants, and cleaned himself off a bit with his jacket sleeve. When she heard his zipper she winced, but relaxed a little when she heard him zip himself back up.

He wrapped his hand around her wrists and pulled her hands from her face. She was so small and soft and warm, and he didn't feel right leaving yet. A part of him felt that staying here like this kept something at bay, something frightening. He sat up a little bit and gazed down at her. She stared up at the bare light bulb, her face haunted and resigned. Her pupils constricted in the light. Kaiba realized that he liked looking at her face, even when it was scared and sad. Her hair was spread out like the wings of a robin behind her head, her cheeks were softly rounded, her eyes were large pieces of sky fringed with feathery lashes. Her skin was a blend of strawberries and white peaches. Her hair smelled like rosewater and vanilla, like citrusy summer afternoons. He put his hand on her cheek and pulled her toward him, forcing her to roll over so her face was in his chest. He stared off into space, wondering what he should do next, as his hand unconsciously stroked up and down her back.


	11. Tea's Fearful Compassion

Tea's Fearful Compassion

When Kaiba first began to grind on top of her, Tea had felt something hard and blunt press into her thigh. Initially, she had thought it was a screwdriver—it seemed reasonable that Kaiba would have tools in case he needed to work on a computer. A second later, she thought it couldn't be something as innocent as a screwdriver—no, it was a gun or a switchblade. It took a few minutes until she knew what was bruising her. Oh my God, she thought. It's his thing. Kaiba's thing is hard, and he's fucking at me with it. He's humping me.

She hardly ever used the word fuck, but it was what Kaiba was doing. He wasn't making love. The undignified "hump" used in conjunction with Seto Kaiba almost made her grin. And he calls Joey a dog, she thought, and a shrill giggle almost forced its way out of her throat, until she realized she had to stay sane.

It's all right, she shouted to herself, it's okay, he's not raping you. You're both clothed, it'll be over soon, he's not raping you, he's not raping you, not raping you, it doesn't hurt that bad, it doesn't hurt that bad, it's not rape…

But that hard, blunt thing was screwing itself down to her bone, and his weight might snap her femur. It was so hot, and he was so heavy. He was so thin. He shouldn't feel so heavy. He shouldn't be so strong.

His hand jumped all over her body, tickling and pressing and rubbing and probing. One second it was squeezing her hip, then it was gripping her shoulder, then it was palming the side of her neck. It fisted in her hair and scuttled over her chest. It lifted her skirt, and she fought back tears—not of fear this time, but embarrassment. What if he touched her there, a place so precious to her, and yet so filthy? She struggled to get her hands free to hide herself from those cold blue eyes, but he had her arms pinned.

His head lifted and he looked her in the eye. His breath hissed between his spit shiny teeth. His eyes, normally so cold, glowed with heat. He was a beast.

He stopped thrusting and lay there, panting, his hand between her breasts. She felt her heart beat under his palm. She knew that he felt it too. He was feeling her inner workings, what kept her alive, and she could no longer act as if she wasn't afraid. Her body told him she was. She was exposed and vulnerable. She had lost all her dignity.

"Please," she whispered, "Please, don't hurt me."

He shoved himself up on both her shoulders and pumped at her so hard her skin burned from the friction of his pants. They were going to fall off the mats, she thought, with a wild hope. If they fell, he would stop.

Then he stiffened and arched his back and let loose a sound between a grunt and a scream that trailed off into a gasping groan. That sound horrified her more than anything. It seemed to settle itself into every pore in the brick wall and linger. It was not a human sound. It was not a Kaiba sound. She imagined what his face might look like and shuddered.

Something batted lightly at her face. It was the Duel Monsters card Kaiba wore around his neck. She cracked her fingers and peered through them at a picture of a little boy in sepia, with a wide smile and long, wild black hair. It was Kaiba's little brother, and Tea knew that for the rest of her life she would never forget the combination of that sound with her finger-filtered view of Mokuba's smiling face.

Kaiba stayed pushed up on Tea's shoulders for a few moments, and then shakily lowered himself down. His weight lifted off of her and she felt the moist heat of sweat evaporating off her body.

Her leg was still trapped. He was going to kill her. She would not cry. She would not cry, she would not scream. If this was inevitable, she would go quietly and peacefully.  
He pulled her hands from her face and looked down at her. She stared at the light bulb. It's brownish, winking light burned her retinas. She did not mind.

She was surprised when Kaiba hugged her close and wrapped his leg around her. She was surprised at how gentle his arms were. He smelled like laundry detergent and gingery cologne, with the sour tang of nervous sweat beneath. His wide, bony hand moved up and down her back, and her nerves pulsed a tingling jolt of electricity up her spine and down her arms. It was hard to breathe, buried in his chest. She weighed moving and possibly making him angry (or excited again) or suffocating, and chose to breathe. She moved her head slightly, and found Kaiba's heartbeat. It was thumping hard, but slowing down.

She hadn't listened to anyone's heartbeat since she was ten years old, the year her parents decided she was to old to snuggle into their laps. For ten years, their laps were hers. She had fallen asleep to their hearts beating so often that when they finally told her she couldn't, she used a trick she learned from when she got her little terrier, Ivan. The vet had said that when Ivan couldn't sleep, they should wrap an old-fashioned alarm clock, the kind that ticked, in a towel and put it next to him, so he'd think he was still with to his mother. So, she'd gotten some extra blankets, so she wouldn't feel so cold from lack of body heat, and her rag doll and her stuffed ballerina bunny, and Ivan, and they had all snuggled together to an alarm clock wrapped in a towel.

She wished she was wrapped up in bed with Ivan and Raggedy Ann and Mitzi, and yet…she liked Kaiba's smell. He smelled so different from her father. And listening to his heartbeat was so…_intimate._ He had felt hers, and it felt like he was giving something back to her. It was like seeing him naked. His weight on top of her was no longer so crushing. It felt sort of nice. She thought about the time when they would both have to separate, stand, and walk out together, and she found that more frightening than being held in his arms. She also knew it had to be done. His heart was beating in her face, lulling her into security. She had to fight it. This was wrong. What they had done was wrong. That sharp, shocking yank she had felt on her nipples and between her legs, that pull that sent sizzles throughout her body, when Kaiba had told her that her skin was soft was wrong. Thinking about his throaty murmur when he said that made that sensation come again.

She squirmed. Kaiba pulled away from her a bit, and she disentangled herself from him. She rolled off the mats and stood up, her eyes on the ground. She smoothed her skirt and blouse and hair, accidently pulled a snarl in her hair, and realized that she must look frantic. She ran her hands over herself again, slowly this time, feigning calm. She felt him staring at her.

" I have to go home," she said.

Kaiba said nothing. Tea could imagine him slowly blinking, like a reptile.

She fought back tears.

The mats made a zipping sound when he sat up. Tea backed away, her eyes on his legs.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out two more bills.

"No," Tea said, her voice cracking, "I don't…I NEED to GO now."

"Don't go yet," Kaiba said. He stood. Tea felt like collapsing.

He stepped across the room and took her wrist again. He pried open her fist and pushed the bills into her hand. She tried to pull away, and he held her fast. She tried to drop the bills, but he wrapped his hand around hers.

"I promised this to you."

"I don't want it."

"Why not? I want to see you put it in your purse."

"I AM NOT A WHORE."

The word whore was nauseating inside her mouth, but it made her angry, and the anger gave her the strength to look at his face. His eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open. Her anger had surprised him. He squared his shoulders and wiped his face free of any shock too quickly for her to know for sure.

"I never said…" His voice trailed off. He tightened his grip on her wrist and hand. "This is for your friend. For Joey's birthday gift. Don't you still want to get him the Flame Swordsman?"

Twin tears escaped from her eyelids and ran down both cheeks.

"Don't you?"

She stared at him. She tried to narrow and harden her eyes. Kaiba looked ill. The corners of his eyes and mouth had softened. He was no longer smirking. He looked like he was expecting terrible pain, like he was being stalked. Tea felt a sickening desire to comfort him, to ask him what was wrong, to offer help. She could still feel the bruising pressure on her hip where his crotch had pressed into her minutes before. Her rage and pity wrestled and twisted and squirmed together in the net of her guts.

"Take it," he said, "Please, Gardner, just take it."

She spun away from him, opened the door, and walked briskly away, almost running, forcing herself not to look behind. The door swung shut behind her with a click.

Kaiba watched her go. Then he whipped around and punched the wall.


	12. The Trial of Tea Gardner

The Trial of Tea Gardner

Tea walked home, feeling like she was unreal, like she was made out of paper. Nothing felt right—her knees didn't fit in their sockets, and her skin wasn't sitting properly on her bones. It kept inching this way and that, and she had to keep patting her arms down. She blinked rapidly, over and over, then squinched her eyes shut, trying to make the world look normal again, to get the colors back to their proper brightness. People were moving either too slow or too fast.

To her relief, nobody looked at her, though for some reason the buildings were taller and leaned toward her, peering down at her. It was as if she was a newborn baby in a crib, or a dissected frog in a pan, or dog food in a dish. They were sniffing at her. She KNEW she had to look different, with her skin wriggling this way and that, and her eyes unfocused. Maybe she was levitating, but no, her feet were still on the sidewalk, and still moving forward, but they looked like they were just walking in place, and it was the concrete that was rolling by under her feet. She knew she smelled different. She smelled like Kaiba now, like sex and sweat and her own desperation. It was strange that only the buildings seemed to notice.

This made no sense. Nothing made sense.

She scratched her arm. It hurt, just like she had hurt Kaiba. Kaiba….

She should go to the police. She should go to the policeman on the corner.

She moved her feet faster and the sidewalk zoomed by under her feet. But the stores just moved by so slowly. They stretched off into the distance, each building getting longer and longer, red brick and stucco morphing into taffy.

What the hell was she supposed to say to the cop when she approached him? Should she tug at his coat and say, "Excuse me, I've been raped"? Should she start flailing and screaming? Was that what she should do? How could she? She couldn't speak. She was almost deaf. The city was mute. The commands her brain gave her body stuttered and slurred.

Besides, Kaiba was big. He was powerful. She couldn't say anything about him. He would put HER in jail. His lawyer would get up in front of the court and say, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Your Honor. If what Seto Kaiba, my client, did was so wrong, why didn't Tea Gardner fight harder? She could have forced him off. She is strong. She can run fast. She's a dancer. And if it was so horrible, what my client, Mr. Seto Kaiba (child millionaire and generous genius), did, why did she let him hold her? Why did she like his smell, and his heartbeat? Why did she like it when he told her that her skin was soft, and when he touched her neck? Why did she feel guilty about leaving him all alone in that room afterward?"

A mirage of Kaiba's desperate face appeared on the sidewalk ahead of her. The concrete pitched and hawed. Tea put her hand on a tree to steady herself. It was one she knew. Home, she was almost home. She broke into a run. Kaiba's imaginary lawyer droned on in her mind.

"And, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, and Your Honor, if she HATED what Seto Kaiba, my powerful, intelligent, client (who is also an EXCEPTIONAL older brother, I might add), did what this girl says he did, why does she still have his money?"

Tea ran across her apartment complex's front lawn. If she could get into the house, and in the shower, than she could think, and hear, and her eyesight would return to normal, and maybe she would even wake up, and shrug this all off as some weird dream.

"AND, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let's not forget that Miss Gardner was untrue to her friend Yugi, and the Spirit of his Ring. This is a girl who claims she LOVES the Spirit, and LOVES Yugi, and yet she was perfectly willing to follow a boy, no, I apologize, a man, a fine, upstanding young man, but one whom she BARELY knows, into a dark, dingy closet, ON SCHOOL PROPERTY, and let him fondle her, after her gave her only eleven dollars. ELEVEN DOLLARS! And then she took ELEVEN more."

Tea burst through the front door of the apartment complex and climbed up the stairs, her hand gripping the railing. She passed an elderly neighbor going down the stairs and knew that the old lady knew what she did, and the old lady was going to complain to the manager that she refused to live on the same floor as a WHORE.

With shaking hands she unlocked the apartment door. Her parents wouldn't be home for a while. Friday was grocery -shopping night. Ivan was at the groomer's. Her parents would pick up a squeaky clean Ivan, who would be clad in a fresh bandanna. Then, after they put the groceries away, they would go on a date. They would go out and have fun, and they assumed she was out having fun.

Clean. She had to clean. She would clean the bathroom and the kitchen and this would all go away. Yes. She would clean.

She pulled the bucket out from under the sink and carried it to the bathtub to fill it with hot water and bubbly antiseptic. She grabbed sponges and a mop. She flushed the toilet to wet its sides and squirted in electric blue toilet bowl cleaner. The cleaner dribbled down the sides and dissolved in beads in the bowl like alien blood.

Tea fell to the ground, bruising her knees, in her frenzy to scrub the tub. It was going to be all right. All this time she thought Joey would have to suffer for her mistake, for her nightmare, by not getting his Flame Swordsman. Now he wouldn't have to! She could get the money from her parents, after all! And Tea's parents weren't going to lose a spotless kitchen, an immaculate bathroom, or a devoted daughter. The money they would give Tea would be sinless and untainted. She would use it to buy Joey's Swordsman, and the Swordsman would be nice and clean, too.

She dropped the sponge. Kaiba's money. Where was it?

She got up and went back to the apartment's entryway. The four bills lay scattered across the floor. She picked each bill up, two tens, two ones, with her fingertips, and shoved them into her purse. She had to do something with it. Destroying it would be a federal crime.

She went back out to the street, turned right at the stop sign, and walked quickly toward the dumpster by the fancy Mexican restaurant. Her hips swung freely in their sockets, loose and light by the prospect of good karma.

He was there, leaning on the dumpster, facing the street with his cardboard sign against his chest and his Dixie cup in his hand. His tufted hair, the texture of fiberglass insulation and the color of steel, was covered by his trademark oily baseball cap. She ran up to him.

"Hello," she said. She was giddy. Close up, his face was red and wrinkled and sagged. He had a slight cataract, but underneath the silvery rheuminess his eyes were beautiful, a cocktail olive green. He smiled. His cheeks lifted an inch, and his eyes twinkled. Her mother would have called it an Irish smile, just like Tea's grandfather had. The steel of his hair was rusted with reddish gold. Tea knew he must have been a beautiful man, and for a moment, she forgot about Kaiba. This man was a more incredible mystery.

"Hello, there," he said. His voice was shy, high and hoarse, childlike.

Tea pulled out the twenty-two dollars and gave it to the man. His tiny, muscular hands were cracked and grimy. The old man's eyes were Christmas trees, a sunny pasture in the spring. His toothless smile spilled out over Tea, and she felt physically warmer.

"Oh, angel," he said, and Tea heard a distinct lilt. "You can't imagine how grateful I am. Bless you, bless you."

"What's your name?" Tea asked. She had to know it.

"My name is David, my dear, David Seamus."

"It's good to meet you, Mr. Seamus. I'm Tea."

"A lovely name," Mr. Seamus took Tea's hand. She didn't flinch, even though his fingernails were black and his palms were brown. "You're a good girl." He let go of her hand, and then Tea turned and walked away, back to her cleaning.

She felt acquitted.


	13. Devolution

Devolution

A picture hung above every child's bed in the orphanage. Over Seto's bed was a drawing of a fat toddler clutching a scepter, clad in robes, crown, and a sour pout. Over Mokuba's bed hung a painting of a little lion cub with a black mane trapped underneath a net. It was a depressing picture, and even as a child Seto knew that the choice of decoration was in poor taste.

Shortly after the brothers were sent to live in the orphanage, Mokuba started to sleepwalk. He was only four when they arrived. Seto was nine. Seto would wake to Mokuba's stirrings, follow the sounds to wherever Mokuba was pacing, or crouching, or staring sightlessly into space, put an arm around him, and lead him back to bed. Sometimes, when Mokuba was particularly rooted to a spot, Seto would bend his knees, wrap his arms around Mokuba's ribs, and carry him back to bed.

One night, Seto woke up to silence. It was strange and eerie, that silence. He rolled over in bed and found himself looking into cavernous dark eyes. Mokuba stared down at him, and Seto had no way of knowing that eight years later he would see that look on his little brother's face again. At that moment, he wasn't even sure that this was his brother, that this wasn't some sort of doppelganger. He bunched his blankets under his chin.

Mokuba spoke. "She turned inside out, Seto," he said, his voice as hollow and dark as his eyes. "I killed her."

Seto put his hand on top of Mokuba's head and wordlessly led him back to bed. Mokuba did not resist. He lay down when he got back to bed, and, this time, Seto did not tuck the blankets around them. He just threw the covers over Mokuba and went back to bed, curling himself tightly in the middle of the mattress.

The next night, after dinner, when the brothers were cleaning their room in preparation for bed, they were visited by Mr. and Mrs. Prosser. Mr. and Mrs. Prosser ran the orphanage, and it was hard to tell whether they were husband and wife or mother and son. Mr. Prosser was a square- jawed man with close- set, beady eyes and a strange nose with a prominent bridge that started directly between his eyes and then sloped straight down. His body was womanly, with flaring hips and cushiony buttocks. Mrs. Prosser had a square jaw and thin, long lips. Her Barbie-doll eyes bulged. Her teeth were white tiles set in horsey gums. When they entered the room Mokuba and Seto stopped what they were doing and stood at attention.

"Young man," Mr. Prosser barked at Mokuba, "this has got to stop. This getting up in the middle of the night and wandering around is a hazard to people and property."

"You must think of the other children, dear," Mrs. Prosser said through her plaster smile. "You must think of us. What if you break something?"

"Mokie hasn't broken anything," Seto said. "He usually just goes somewhere and sits on the floor, or looks out the window—"

"I wasn't addressing you!" Mr. Prosser's face was already reddening with agitation. "You think this is normal, for him to go gallivanting around at ungodly hours, doing God knows what? NO. It is abnormal. It is deviant."

"Now, now, dear," Mrs. Prosser patted her husband (son?) on the shoulder with a small hand. The palm was plump, and the fingers bony. Her nails were long and shiny. She turned to the brothers. "You see how upset you've made him? How do you feel now, knowing that you've caused him such pain?" Her face shifted and changed with each word, becoming stonier and colder, her voice coarser with each syllable. "Do you know how much money we put into this orphanage? It didn't spring up from the ground looking this cozy and nice. And the insurance! What if Mokuba falls down the stairs and breaks his neck? It would ruin us."

"This can't happen again," Mr. Prosser raised his fist. "I have found a solution, and tonight that solution will be implemented. I am going to retrieve it from my office now, and when I get back, I expect both of you to have your pajamas on and your teeth brushed." He turned and stomped out, his wife/mother following, and clicked the door shut behind them both. The boys changed into their coarse, yellowish linen pajamas.

"Seto," Mokuba whispered, "Do you think they're going to spank me?" Mr. Prosser was quite handy with belts, and Mrs. Prosser, while preferring to give swats on the butt while crying that discipline couldn't possibly hurt the child more than it hurt her, was a master of improvisation with rulers and wooden spoons.

"Of course not, Mokie," Seto was gearing himself up to fling himself into the path of a striking strap if need be. "They know you're not doing it on purpose. And if they try, I won't let them."

But when the Prossers returned, they were not carrying any belts or rulers or wooden spoons. They were carrying a mass of canvas. They stopped at the foot of Mokuba's bed.

"Did you brush your teeth?" Mr. Prosser's looked at Mokuba from a sideways angle, his eyes wide,

Mokuba nodded.

Mr. Prosser jerked his head toward the bed. "Go on then."

Mokuba crawled onto the mattress on all fours. He paused on his hands and knees and gazed at the Prossers, waiting for their next instructions.

"LIE DOWN," Mr. Prosser's shoulders shook. Mokuba belly-flopped onto the top of his blankets. Mrs. Prosser sighed. She set down her side of the canvas and it unfurled on the floor. Seto could see that the canvas had squares cut out of it. Mrs. Prosser yanked the covers down from the head of the bed, covering Mokuba's legs. She grabbed Mokuba by the elbows, flipped him around so his head was on the pillow, and covered him up. She went back to the foot of the bed and gathered up her end of the canvas. Mr. and Mrs. Prosser started to unroll the canvas over Mokuba's bed, Mr. Prosser on one side, Mrs. Prosser on the other.

Mokuba lay flat under the covers, his eyes rolling back toward the Prossers as the canvas grew and spread and consumed the navy blue bed covers little by little. Seto expected it to stop at Mokuba's neck, but it just kept going, until the Prossers had pulled it over Mokuba's head and tucked it between the top of the mattress and the wall.

Mr. Prosser pulled two heavy canvas straps from the back of his belt. Iron buckles clacked onto the floor, making a sound like biting jaws, like bones striking steel. Seto's jaw clenched.

Mr. and Mrs. Prosser got on their knees on both sides of the bed. Mr. Prosser reached under the bed and handed an end to Mrs. Prosser, who moved to the end of the bed and worked her clasp through a loop. Mr. Prosser did the same on his end. The click and _schwoop_ of the buckles as they were cinched and yanked had a dreadful finality.

Mr. Prosser moved to the foot of the bed and passed the end of the second strap to Mrs. Prosser. Mrs. Prosser moved to the head of the bed. Buckles were attached and straps were pulled. Mr. and Mrs. Prosser moved around the bed, jerking here and there. When they were done, they stepped back and admired their handiwork.

Mokuba was pressed down into the mattress by the weight of the canvas. The bed spread was visible through the lattice. Mokuba's hair poked through the squares. He could barely lift his head, his arms, or his legs. Seto saw him trying to move his limbs. The canvas stirred only slightly.

Mr. Prosser wiped his brow. "Well, that should do it," he puffed. Then he turned and strode out of the room. Mrs. Prosser followed. She was almost gone when Seto called to her.

"Mrs. Prosser," Seto ran to her side. He didn't want Mokuba to hear what he had to ask her. "What if Mokie has to go to the bathroom?"

Mrs. Prosser's smile widened until it crossed the line and became a grimace. "Well, dear," she said, "we'll just have to wait until the morning. If Mokuba has an accident, and I hope he doesn't, he'll just have to clean it up and wear rubber pants until he stops the behavior. But I wouldn't worry, dear. He went before he went to bed, didn't he, like a good boy? Of course he did. Now go to sleep."

She turned out the light and closed the door behind her.

Seto spent the next half hour figuring out how to undo the buckles and straps by moonlight so Mokuba could use the toilet, and another half hour figuring out how to re-do them so they wouldn't get into trouble the next morning.

Over the course of the next few weeks, summer shyly moved in. The nights came a little later and left a little earlier. The heat moved in with the light, and, together, the two set up housekeeping, taking their territory inch by inch.

One night, while it was still bright as day, Seto wasn't feeling well. His stomach muscles clenched, doubling him over. He tried to eat a little bit of bread, but it was like throwing a rock into a bucket too close to flowing over—the pressure increased and threatened to burst his intestines. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on keeping control. He focused on clenching every muscle in his body, on pulling every thing up toward his head. Maybe it would work. Yes. Seto felt some of the pressure ease. The boil went down to a simmer.

One of the older boys shoved him lightly on the shoulder. "Seto, get in the kitchen. You're on duty."

Seto squinted at the boy silhouetted in the lowering sunshine. "Why? Where's Dennis?"

"Bastard got adopted out yesterday. Come on."

Seto turned to Mokuba. "Will you be okay, Mokie?"

Mokuba smiled. "Sure, Seto. I'll color in our room until Mrs. Prosser puts me to bed."

Seto smiled back, but inside he felt a snap of anger. The anger knotted all his muscles. The pain in his guts intensified. Mokuba should have had that canvas taken off of him by now. Every night, he went to the bathroom and pushed and pushed until every drop of urine was gone from his bladder. He wouldn't drink for three hours before bed. He sometimes panted in the night from thirst, from the oppressive heat of the canvas, from the effort of trying to turn in his sleep. Sometimes, Seto would get a glass of water and dribble it into Mokuba's suckling lips, wiping away any that fell onto his chin and rolled into the folds of baby fat on his neck. It made Seto want to cry, but he knew crying accomplished nothing.

Mokuba went to bed and Seto went to the kitchen to begin washing dishes. The sun still hung bright in the sky. It had cooled from noon-day whiteness to an evening red. Seto had learned recently that the sun doesn't cool off at night, or change color. It was the world that was fickle in temperature and color; the sun was constant.

Seto's fingers were numb as he picked up plates, dipped them in the soapy water, then put them in the drying rack. Sweat ran down his sides from his armpits and soaked the waist of his pants from the small of his back. He licked his lips, and they cracked under his tongue. He was straining all his muscles up toward his head, standing on his toes from the effort. All the blood in his body was channeled into two spots on his cheeks, two little red suns that burned and prickled. Everywhere else was cold, so cold he trembled. This was hell.

Please, he thought. Sweat ran into his eyes and he blinked at it, his eyelids scraping his eyeballs. Please make the pain stop. He stared at the sun. It was the most powerful thing he knew. It could obliterate anything and everything. Please, please, please.

His intestines kinked and twisted inside him. He doubled over and cried out. Every little muscle was a barbed fist. The pain was excruciating, but it was soon overshadowed by horror as the fists relaxed their grips and the cramp went as suddenly as it came, and he felt hot, foul water stream down his legs.

All the boys looked at him when he doubled over and cried out. Murmurs spread through the room, shouts, "What the hell is wrong with that kid?" "I'm getting Mrs. Prosser." And then there was silence as the other boys realized what had happened. Then Seto entered the second circle of hell.

"Oh, God!"

"Jesus Christ, he's shit himself!"

"Get him out of here!"

Two older boys grabbed Seto's arms and dragged him out of the kitchen and into the hallway, leaving a trail of unmentionable droplets. Seto was sobbing now, sobbing without sound, his chest heaving but no cries coming from his mouth. He could feel the fluid cool and contract in his pants.

Mrs. Prosser came around the corner, a charging blonde bull.

"What is this?" She shrieked. She stopped when she saw Seto. She put a hand over her mouth. "Oh, God."

Her eely arms snatched Seto away from the boys. "Go back to the kitchen!" She roared. She didn't sound like Mrs. Prosser. She was a bawling, roaring, foaming minotaur.

She dragged Seto outside. He couldn't feel the ground under his feet. She flung him out into the red glares and yellowish gazes of the summer evening. She yanked off his clothes, catching his skin on her fingernails, spitting words Seto couldn't make out.

When he was naked, she pulled out the hose. She jerked the nozzle with so much force it almost came off in her hands.

The water was a blizzard of stinging ice on Seto's skin. It knocked the wind out of him; it knocked him over. He pushed himself back up onto his knees, the water hitting him full-force in the face and blinding him. His blood vessels pinched shut from cold. Finally, the water stopped.

There was a bonfire in the yard. The Prossers had trimmed back some trees and were burning the dead branches. Mrs. Prosser pointed a skeletal finger at his filthy clothes, and then at the bonfire. Seto stared at her. She swung her arm back at the clothes, and then to the bonfire. Seto didn't understand. She flung the hose down onto the concrete patio with a clang.

"PICK UP YOUR FILTH AND THROW IT IN THE FIRE!" Her blonde pink face was swollen and blotchy, Seto carefully picked up his clothes in his fingertips, holding them as far away from his body as possible, and threw them into the fire. The diarrhea had been washed away but he could still feel it clinging to his body, settling into his pores and entering his bloodstream.

Mrs. Prosser snatched him up again and dragged him back inside, down the hall, and to the laundry room. Some boys were sitting in the common room, playing cards. They didn't look up when Seto's nude body was dragged past them—or did they?

Mrs. Prosser tossed Seto into the mildewed laundry room, slamming the door shut behind her. She turned on the sink full blast. Steam rose from the water that filled the basin. Seto shivered. The cold was icing his bones.

Mrs. Prosser put on heavy rubber gloves the color of erasers. They squeaked. She picked up a boar's -hair brush. She lifted Seto and dipped him into the scalding water.

He screamed. It felt like his skin was bubbling and peeling away.

She yanked him out of the water and scrubbed him with the boar's-hair brush. Lather ran down Seto's legs and pooled around his feet. She was spitting out words again, and this time he heard her.

"Nasty…Little…Piece of _filth_… little better than an _animal_…belongs in a _sewer_…"

She dipped the brush into the hot water over and over, scrubbing Seto's legs, chest, belly, ass, and crotch. It was like being stung by a billion bees. Seto's tears and cries of pain were a rock in his chest, lodged in his esophagus. It was trying to get out, it was tearing him apart, but all he could do was sob, and whimper.

Finally, Mrs. Prosser's arm went limp and the brush fell to the soapy floor with a hollow slap. Seto was falling, too. His tears were mixing into the foamy pool surrounding his feet, and he was going limp. Mrs. Prosser caught him.

She lifted him onto the counter and covered him with a towel, then turned and walked away. She didn't need to tell him not to move, or she would be right back. He knew. He was too weak to move. The pain of his skin was fading from a sear to a throb.

Mrs. Prosser came back. She was carrying something white and puffy. At first, Seto didn't know what it was. Then the thing started to take shape, and his mind refused to believe it. He looked at Mrs. Prosser's glossy, determined eyes.

"No," he whispered. "No, no, please no. I'm better now, really."

She moved next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He grabbed her wrist and tried to push her away, but he was too weak.

"Please, please, I'll sleep in the bathroom. Just, please, no, no, no…"

Mrs. Prosser pushed Seto onto his back on the counter. He tried to twist away, but she pulled him toward her until his legs were trapped between her belly and the counter's edge. She wrestled the cotton and plastic underneath him and threaded it through his legs. Seto covered his eyes with his hands as she opened a drawer and then closed it again. The tape made a flatulent ripping as she wrapped it around his upper thighs, attaching the cloth to his skin.

"There now," she said. Her voice was calm and cheerful. "That'll keep you from ripping it off. You'll have to wait until I take the baby oil to the sticky in the morning."

She sat Seto up. He wrapped the towel around his legs. She didn't take it away after she lifted him from the counter.

The walk back to his room was slow and surreal. The other boys were in their rooms, but he could imagine them peeking through cracks in doors and holes in walls, watching his walk of shame.

Mrs. Prosser pushed him into his and Mokuba's dark room. She closed the door behind him.

Seto walked to his bed. The tape was yanking the tiny, fine fuzz that covered his inner thighs. The puckers of the diaper's legs chafed his skin. He pulled open his drawer and lifted out a pair of pajamas, and then pushed the drawer smoothly shut. He put on his pajamas, stretching out the waist as far as it could go as he pulled it over the diaper, and climbed into bed. The thing felt huge between his legs. His skin was stained from his filth. He knew it. He felt it.

He let his head fall to the side to look out the window at the moon. Sometimes, the moon was sharp and silvery blue, and sometimes it was fuzzy and golden, like tonight. It was the most powerful thing in the world, next to the sun. It was watery and gentle and serene, full of mysteries and secrets. Seto loved it more than the sun.

The moon was looking at Mokuba, because its light was falling on him. Mokuba was lying on his belly, his head turned away from Seto. He looked so precious to Seto, so small, but noble and bright, a prince. This wonderful little prince was trapped under canvas.

Please, Seto thought, please, let me die tonight. Let me just die in my sleep. Let us both die. Set us free.

But right when Seto said those words in his head, another voice inside him screamed NO. Seto lifted his head and slammed it into the pillow, then again, and again. He had to punish his brain for thinking those thoughts, shake them right out of his head. How could he ever think of dying? What was wrong with him?

He heard a rustle. Mokuba was stirring under his canvas net. He lifted his head as high as he could and turned it toward Seto, his nose pushing into the pillow. His eyes gazed at Seto. Mokuba's eyes were full of sadness and empathy, but there was hope in those eyes, too, and trust, and that trust was for Seto. Because Seto saw that hope and trust, he knew that Mokuba didn't know what he was wearing under his covers, and never would know.

He would keep that hope and trust alive in Mokuba. He would keep it blazing, and it would burn away all of Mokuba's fears and sadness.

As for Seto, he would keep his anger and his pride freshly stoked.


	14. Places Dirty and Holy

Places Dirty and Holy

Joey was ecstatic about his Flame Swordsman. He picked Tea up and spun around with her in a dizzy joy. Tea was proud that she had made him so happy. Yugi and the Spirit were proud of her too. She saw it in Yugi's open admiration, his bright shining eyes and warm smile. But while Yugi was warm and bright, the Spirit was smoldering. He had reached out and put his hand on top of hers. His hand was strong and gentle. Her whole body hummed from the contact. It turned her mind away from Kaiba, from the look on his face when she had left; from the sounds he had made; from the feel of his crawling, jumping hands on her body; from the throb of his heart.

Tea didn't want to believe the encounter actually happened. Most of the time, she was able to tell herself that it was a dream, and she almost bought what she was selling. Mostly, she just remembered the bulb hanging from the stained ceiling, burning a bright circle into her vision.

She was clean, now. She had made sure of it. She cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the kitchen, gave that dirty money to someone who needed it, and, in the giving, the money was transubstantiated into something pure. Then, she had scrubbed herself in the shower, using a washcloth and soap everywhere he had touched her. She had imagined Kaiba's sweat and skin cells clinging to her skin, just like Keith's had clung to that little piece of paper. She had been saturated with Kaiba. She watched the water swirl down the drain, along with Kaiba particles. But sometimes, she could smell him, that gingery, sweet, musk odor, on her clothes, and her stomach would lurch. She was sure that her friends would smell it, but they didn't notice anything.

When her parents got home, they gave her the money she needed, and she was able to push the afternoon further away by concentrating on begging her father to drive her to the toy store before it closed. When she had the Swordsman, she focused on making homemade wrapping paper out of a grocery bag. She cut and re-cut, folded and re-folded, sized and re-sized, until the paper fit the box perfectly. She lost time, and filled her mind with tape and paper bags. Exhilarated, almost manic, she colored the wrapping paper with markers. She hunted down ribbons and curled them with scissor blades, then tied them around the box.

When her present was perfect, she fell into bed. Her euphoria wore off into numbness. She slept, and didn't dream.

On Monday, she had hoped to get some verification from Kaiba about whether what happened was real or a dream. He didn't look at her. He didn't look at anyone. She kept as far away from him as possible, but she supposed it hadn't been necessary. He ignored her, and that was all the proof she needed to convince herself it didn't happen.

She had expected to have a bruise on her hip or thigh where he had thrust into her, but there was no mark. Her own body told her nothing.

It was now Wednesday, and, with no bruises, and no word from Kaiba, and none of her friends looking at her funny, everything seemed normal. There was one change she happily acknowledged: she felt more in love with the Spirit than ever, and she felt as if he felt more affection toward her.

She had not touched herself in the shower or in her bed since the night thoughts about Bandit Keith obliterated her libido. But as she showered after Wednesday night dance practice, she had started thinking about the Spirit again, about the look in his eyes when he gazed at her, about the feel of his hand on hers. She replayed his rich, smooth voice when he said, "You're a good friend, Tea."

She liked thinking about the Spirit, because then she didn't think about Kaiba, and what happened in that closet. It seemed less and less real to her, more like a dream, like viewing a surreal movie. And thinking about the Spirit made her warm and vibrant. It made her glow on the inside. She felt that glow in her heart, and between her legs, and on her nipples.

It was a thrill just feeling those secret nerves awaken and stir in those secret, sacred parts. When she first touched herself, she had felt a giddy curiosity and anticipation. She wasn't sure if she could handle having an orgasm, if it was as good as her romance novels described it. What if her body just came apart?

She sometimes felt afraid of her own genitals. What if they were ugly, slimy, or smelled? She only touched one area—the place just below the base of her mons, where her cleft began. She would rub the tip of her finger over that spot in little circles. Whenever she touched anything outside of the dime-sized area, it did feel slippery. When she sniffed her hand afterward—it was just once, and it was something she would never do again—she had smelled a little like buttered toast, and a little like hamburger meat. She had scrubbed her hands with soup afterward, afraid her parents would smell it and know exactly what it was.

She was worried about hurting herself. Directly touching the little bud that she could barely see would be as excruciating as touching her naked eyeball. Pulling the bud's hood –it even felt a little like her eyelid—back made her tense. Even the air swirling and flowing in the calm solitude of her room was too stimulating. It made her more grateful for her eyelids. She could bruise herself, tear herself, slash and scar with her own fingernails the thin skin and membranes that lined her insides. She could only imagine what a man could do.

Now that she had started wearing tampons, she knew more about her anatomy than she would have. She didn't know how she lived without them now, but when she first started using them, she was afraid of the pain. Her mother had explained to her that the tampon is so thin her body wouldn't know it was there, and that Tea's dancing had worn away her hymen anyway, and that she would still be a virgin. Tea thought about the abrasions caused by inserting dry cotton into such a raw place. Wouldn't it scrape the sides as it slid in? She had peeled a strip of skin off of her palms sliding down a rope in gym class She imagined that feeling inside her, and it made her shudder.

The worst part was seeing her hole for the first time. Tea almost dropped the hand-mirror when she saw it—a winking, flexing, blood-pink mouth, with a little tag of flesh for a tongue, looking stupid and hungry as it gazed down at the mirror and was reflected back up into her face. It was nasty, a dirty little secret that Tea would not share with anyone except in the dark. She couldn't bear the thought of a man's fingers or tongue encountering that. It wasn't her—it didn't look like her, or smell like her. It was nothing but a leftover from a primate ancestor—like armpit hair. She was wondering how she and the Spirit could do it with him having the least amount of contact possible with it. The only safe region was the little dime-sized area that started right where her lips split in two.

Her belly was safe to touch too, and her waist, the insides of her forearms, her inner thighs. Those parts were smooth and innocent, but still felt good to stroke and tickle.

That Wednesday night she had been thinking about the Spirit, Yami, her leaps were higher, her plies deeper. Her shampoo was extra foamy, and the soap smelled even sweeter. The lights in the bathroom were rosier. She combed out her hair, put on her t-shirt and sleep shorts, and lay back on her bed. She couldn't stop smiling. If a touch on the hand felt this good, how good would a hug feel? A kiss? A kiss with tongue?

Her shirt had ridden up around her ribcage, exposing her navel. She stroked her stomach with her fingertips—up and down, side to side. She lowered her eyelids. This was something she did not infrequently—she had to practice her bedroom eyes. She imagined the Spirit leaning over her, gazing into her eyes with his soft violet ones. He looked at her with longing and love. He leaned in to kiss her, and his lips parted. Then he paused and said something to her.

"Your skin is so soft."

It was not the Spirit's voice that came from those lips. It was Kaiba's voice murmuring on that tongue.

Tea flinched as if the flesh on her stomach had shocked her. Her body contracted, curling into itself involuntarily. Her eyes stared at the wall. The nightlight flared into her pupils.

"No, " she whispered, "No, no, no, no, no. NO." Her skin tingled and flushed where he had touched her—her neck, her chest, her belly, her waist, her face. The sensations were unpleasant in their titillation. She remembered the grinding pressure where her thigh and hip merged, the hard, bruising bluntness.

She sat up and pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. She conjured up the image of the Spirit, of Yugi, and held them in her mind. She played what the Spirit had said to her over and over in her mind. "You're a good friend, Tea. You're a good friend, Tea…"

The mantra soothed her. The closet became a hazy dreamscape again. Tea could sleep.


	15. Frostbite Doesn't Hurt Until Nerves Wake

Frostbite Doesn't Hurt Until the Nerves Awaken

The fleshy side of Seto Kaiba's hand was still tender from when he punched the wall after Tea left, although the bruise was now fading from purple to yellow. The scratches on his arm had turned from red to soft pink and white. Like her.

Kaiba, who had never been a particularly sensual person, preferring the cerebral over the corporeal, now found his hands not just touching but feeling. They preferred soft things, smooth things. At a conference, he would stoke his silk tie, relishing its slick coolness. He would finger the metallic planes of his laptop. The covers of books had a special appeal, whether they were cushy leather or embossed paper and board.

One night, he stood behind Mokuba, helping him with his fraction homework, when Mokuba spun around. "Seto, what the shit?" Seto realized he had been unconsciously stroking Mokuba's hair.

He thought about the Blue Eyes White Dragon Girl. He didn't deserve her. No matter how hard he tried, he could never look into those clear pools set into that glowing face as pale as the moon.

He thought about Tea. He thought about her more often than he could understand. He would go to school and see her smile, her big eyes with their coal dust lashes, the curves of her cheeks, the flowing lines and subtle flares of her body. He would hear her giggle, and her sweet words of encouragement. He would suffer through it, then, he would go home, and see and hear her there.

He was antsy all the time. His eyes and mouth constantly watered. His muscles twitched. He had a rash that itched and prickled inside the center of his brain and in the marrow of his bones.

Kaiba raged, silently and sullenly. He raged that, even though he was smarter, richer, bigger, and stronger than Tea, even though he, by all rights, should have brought her to her knees, she was still bouncing about, chattering with her friends—and LAUGHING. When was the last time he had laughed?

He held it together, though. If he had nothing else, he was proud of that.

His dirtiness, his wickedness, surrounded him like a miasma wrapped around his body. It bound him like a moist, chafing rope. He used to be able to ignore it most of the time, like a birthmark on the small of the back, but now it sometimes tightened around him, bringing tears to his eyes like a sudden cramp. And it was all because of her. Touching her was supposed to cleanse him. It was supposed to rub off his nastiness onto her. Instead, she made him dirtier. He had been doing so well until she had lain on her back under that tree, her uniform jacket off, and scratched her shin with her toe.

She was TORMENTING him. She knew it. She had to. She was making him hard. She was making him ejaculate. She was turning him into an animal. She was making him aware of his too-gross flesh, his cumbersome body.

Worse, she had made him remember. He remembered the hose, the scalding water, the words Mrs. Prosser hissed at him.

He remembered dancing with his mother, standing on her feet. He had already come up to her chest. She had smelled like roses and lavender. She had been wearing her ballet shoes, white tights, and a gray-green sundress.

Kaiba wiped his face. That heavy, choking ball was back in his throat. It felt like there were tiny needles stinging him behind his eyes.

He wanted to do it again.


	16. On a Tiny Street

On a Tiny Street in the Tiny World of Domino

Kaiba went out after the sun had set. He wore a simple hooded sweatshirt, charcoal gray, with no words or pictures, nothing flashy. His blue jeans were loose around his calves. He looked like a normal teenager, gawky and hunched and in that stage when a boy's thin bones are turning to muscle.

He walked out of the back door of the mansion and out a side gate. The branches of the trees flexed and swayed in a cool, moist wind. Rain was coming.

Even though his sweatshirt and indigo jeans blended in with the bricks and the concrete and the sky, Kaiba felt as if he was wearing neon. He was self-conscious, yet thrilled. As people passed him on the sidewalk and cars drove by without giving him a second glance, the more he congratulated himself on his ability to become invisible. He was a spy on a clandestine mission. He was up to no good, and nobody could stop him. He had done many unethical things and had gotten away with it before, but that was business, and dueling. It had been inevitable, and his triumph had been cool and smug. This was making him feel hot, and giddy. He wasn't used to giddiness. It made him have a dizzy spell and he had to pause and put his hand on the stucco wall of a shop, but he quickly recovered and strode down the street.

To David Seamus, however, who was leaning against the dumpster outside of the Vista Bonita Mexican Restaurant, Kaiba was no spy, or even a millionaire C.E.O., just a long –boned, slouching boy swimming in an oversized sweatshirt and jeans, occasionally breaking a smooth fluid stride with a sudden stiffening of the knees and hips.

The boy approached Seamus, and he wondered if maybe the boy was a run-away, and was going to ask for some spare change or directions for a place to crash. He was expecting a scared young man with darting eyes and skin punctuated by pimples under that hood, and he was expecting a voice that cracked and broke just like the boy's walk. Instead, David Seamus found himself looking up into hard, cold blue eyes set in a marble face.

"Do you know who I am?" The boy asked Seamus. His voice was deep and arrogant, it's smoothness belied by a little grit around the edges. Seamus knew the type.

"No," said Seamus. He was telling the truth. He had no idea who this kid was, and was starting to get a little suspicious.

The boy reached into his pocket. "I need you to do something for me," he handed Seamus a twenty dollar bill. It was thin and the surface was in danger of pilling off into little bills. "If you do what I ask, and don't ask questions, I'll give you twenty more."

Seamus held the bill up to the dome light over the dumpster. He heard the youngster give a hoarse grunt of annoyance, and took his sweet time. When Seamus was satisfied, both with the bill and taking the kid down a peg, he turned and smiled.

"You have yourself a deal," he said. "What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to go to the store across the street and get me something."

"Alright. And what is that something?"

Kaiba shifted his weight and breathed through his nose. He moved his eyes left to right, then back to the homeless Leprechaun, who was gazing up at him with his eager, cloudy eyes. He had nothing to lose with this drunken bum.

"Condoms," Kaiba said. "I need you to buy me a package of condoms, and then meet me back here. You can also buy whatever you want for yourself with the change."

Seamus gazed at Kaiba for a moment, then burst out laughing, his breath coming in cackling bellows. He covered his hands in his mouth to stifle the laughter, but his shoulders continued to spasm.

"I'm sorry, my boy," he said between snorts, "I'm not laughing at you. This has never happened to me before, and I'm just tickled by the novelty of it." Seamus heard a horrible sound and realized that it was the boy grinding his teeth. "I'll go get it right now."

Kaiba waited. Rain tiptoed across the city. Every thirty seconds or so Kaiba would check his watch. When four minutes and six seconds passed, Seamus came back. He held a paper bag, and was munching a candy bar.

"Here you are, sir," Seamus said, holding out the paper bag. "I got you the extra large." He smiled at Kaiba, rolling chocolate and caramel on his tongue and sucking them down his throat behind his chapped lips.

Kaiba took the bag and tucked it into the pocket of his sweatshirt, then handed Seamus the other twenty dollars. Seamus tucked it into his coat. When he looked back up at Kaiba, his eyes glowed wetly in the dome light. His smile was open and genuine.

"I'm very grateful to you, sir," he said. "People always say that children are becoming more and more spoiled and selfish, but would you believe you're the second young one in a week to be so kind to me?"

"Good for you," Kaiba said. Nothing would nauseate him more, he decided, then hearing the Life and Times of Lucky the Lush Leprechaun. He turned to leave.

"The other one was a young girl," Seamus continued. "She had a very pretty name, rather unusual, like something out of a space movie. Tea, I think."

Kaiba stopped, his back toward Seamus. He knew Seamus was going to keep talking.

"She was as pretty as her name, too. She had shiny brown hair, and big blue eyes. Just a little living doll. Do you know her?"

Kaiba looked over his shoulder at Seamus. "No. I don't know any Teas."

" Oh, I wouldn't be surprised that to know her is to love her. Has a heart of warm toffee pudding. Her smile was absolute sunshine."

"Whatever, old man. I don't know her, and if I did I would find her annoying."

Kaiba stormed away from Seamus, who pensively chewed his candy bar, once, twice, three times.

"Well," he said to himself, "He bought me a week's worth of dinners, but what an asshole.


	17. Inevitable

Inevitable

Tea was unaccountably relieved when she got her period. She knew she couldn't possibly be pregnant, but she found, when she felt the twinge across her belly and felt the wetness in her panties, that she subconsciously had been worried about it. As she scrubbed out her underwear, she thought about that Dear Abby letter about the girl who got pregnant because sperm went through her underwear. She tried to remember if she had felt any moisture seeping through Kaiba's pants, and the precise location of his crotch when he ejaculated—Was it on her hip? Her belly button? Or was it in the exact right place to soak through layers of cloth and swim into her body?

She pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets again until the thought of it passed. It had never happened, anyway, and here she was, bleeding. She obviously had nothing to worry about.

It was Thursday, dance team day. She had an hour to kill after school before rehearsal started, which she usually spent studying in the library or practicing in the studio. She decided to split the time. It should take only a half-hour, maybe forty-five minutes, to finish the rough draft of her paper about the Celtic goddesses.

She carried her book bag up to the library and settled in on an armchair to glance through the rough draft. As she read it, she realized that she hadn't mentioned if Brigid had any children or not. She didn't know how she missed that.

She went to the mythology section. She knew it well enough, even before she had to do this project. She liked reading about the Celts and the Ancient Greeks and India, but her absolute favorite, of course, was Egypt.

She ran her finger along the spines of the books, counting one, two, three, four, five, six, and pinched a volume free from the row. She laid the book on top of another row. She had time.

She pulled another book from the shelf. The book fell open in her hands, an eager lover, to a full color picture of a sunset over the Nile. The river wound into the distance. The sun blazed maroon, a drowsy phoenix flaring its feathers across the sky.

Tea could stare at the picture for hours. She had checked it out once and had kept it until it was a month overdue. Since then, she was too embarrassed to re-check it. Instead, she looked at it whenever she could, and dreamed. She would sail down the Nile with Yami one day. She wanted it so badly she ached.

She felt something brush by behind her. Her hair was lifted gently, and then fell back onto her shoulders.

Tea tensed and froze, her skin painfully tight with gooseflesh. She whipped around to see the tails of a trench coat just before they disappeared into the labyrinth of shelves. She stood still for a minute, and counted to thirty, then sixty, feeling like the world around her was falling away and leaving her to hover on a razor's edge. Nobody came at her on either side.

She grabbed her book on Celtic mythology and headed toward the check out counter, ducking quickly from shelf to shelf and scanning the open study area before walking out into it. There was nobody there. At least, there was nobody who was dangerous.

She practically darted toward the counter. Miho, the student librarian, was manning the check out. She smiled when she saw Tea.

"In a hurry?" She asked.

"Yeah," Tea said, smiling back, "Gotta get to practice." She had to force herself to not fidget. He was hiding somewhere. She knew it. She felt it. Her nervous system was telling her to run.

"I know how you feel," sighed Miho. "I'm off in two minutes, and I'm just in overdrive, but the clock is so slow."

"It sure is," said Tea, and she meant it. If Miho got out of work in five minutes, then that meant that Mrs. Delisi wouldn't be in the studio for another twenty. And when Miho left, Mrs. Peckham, the regular librarian, would head back into her office, which was practically a vault, and the library would be pretty much deserted…

"Well," said Tea, her voice sounding atrociously, blatantly forced in its cheerfulness, "I'd better go. I'm going to go practice my routine. It needs some work."

"I'm sure it's beautiful, Tea, but I'll see you later."

"Okay. See you."

_This is stupid_, Tea thought as she walked down the hallway toward the studio. _Nobody is following you_, she said to herself. _Nobody would want to follow you. It's not like you're pretty or anything, so don't flatter yourself. You've got nothing to be afraid of. _ _He's probably not even still in the building. But it doesn't even matter because it wasn't real. You imagined it. _

Still, she found herself lingering in front of the floor to ceiling windows in the main hallway. All too soon she had to leave the guardianship of the sunshine, and go down a dark, narrow hallway and down a dark, narrow staircase.

She checked her watch. She had too much time before Mrs. Delisi got to the studio. Then she looked up and saw her salvation. It was the girls' bathroom.

The girls' bathroom would be her oasis. She would just duck in, hide in a stall, and take her time changing into her shorts and t-shirt. She might even find a clean spot on the floor and work on her rough draft. This was the most private girls' bathroom in the school. Yugi, Tristan, and Joey didn't even know about its existence until she told them about it at the beginning of the year, and they were all sophomores.

The bathroom had just two stalls and two sinks. Tea pulled out her shorts and t-shirt, breathing a sigh of relief. She went into one of the stalls and changed. Except for the rustling of her falling skirt, and the whispers of her baggy shorts and loose t-shirt as she pulled them on, the bathroom was a cloister. The stall felt as safe as a bunker. And yet…

And yet, when she opened the stall door and saw Kaiba staring down at her, the situation seemed so inevitable. Of course he would be standing there, of course.

She felt like she had been a fool to even try avoiding it.


	18. For Nothing

I have realized that I have forgotten to put a disclaimer for many chapters now. Allow me to remedy this. This is all based on Kazuki Takahashi's work. I welcome (who am I kidding, I crave) reviews.

For Nothing

Kaiba's eyes were ringed with shiners and red-rimmed. Again, she felt that mixture of pity and rage she had felt before she left him in the closet. She almost reached out to touch him, to help him to the floor, or to his knees before the toilet if need be. But Kaiba was quicker, and he took her by the shoulder and pulled her out of the stall before she could make up her mind to do anything.

She tried to scream but all that came out were muffled little squeaks and whimpers. She twisted about in the tightening circle of his arms but only succeeded in getting turned around so her back was pressed against his belly. He swung her around and pressed her against the wall.

They stood there for a moment, as if they were both trying to get accustomed to the contact. Kaiba's hands then moved tentatively down her arms to her wrists, holding them—not pushing, just holding them—against the creamy lime colored tile. Tea's fists trembled in the circles of his fingers. Then he leaned back a little, clasping her to his chest, and brought her arms between her chest and the smooth coolness of the tile and concrete.

Tea kicked at the wall. Her whimpers and sobs and ragged breathing echoed off the wall in front of her and back into her face. She twisted in his arms, but Kaiba just leaned forward and slammed her into the wall. His arms around her ribs and the force of the blow were hard enough to bruise her knees and shove the air from her lungs in a breathy yelp. Her yelp startled him. He drew back slightly, as if he was afraid of hurting her.

Tea felt weak and dizzy. She was disoriented. For a moment, Kaiba's arms disappeared from around her middle and she felt like she was drowning, floating in a bright white sea populated by brown- black, gelatinous shadows spinning and dissolving in chaotic patterns.

Kaiba's arms and hands and fingers and palms returned gradually with her breath. They moved over her like they did in the closet—quickly, thoroughly, tracing circles, lines, curves. He would switch her wrists from the grip of one hand to the other, depending on what region of her body he was exploring. She felt his thing pushing into the small of her back as he rubbed and pressed himself against her harder and harder and his breath grew heavier and heavier in her ear and on her neck. His mouth smelled like fruit punch, like he had been eating Skittles.

Tea let her head drop and her hair cover her face. She noticed that the mint colored tiles of the floor were freckled with dark blue flecks. She tried to lose herself in the infinity of those dots, tried to get away from the bruises on her knees that ached deep down to them marrow whenever Kaiba thrust hard enough to press them with his knees into the wall. He had pulled her from the wall only enough to give himself access to her chest and belly. His hands shook when he ran them briefly over her breasts.

_You stupid, cowardly bitch_, she thought to herself. _You're just letting this happen. You have to fight. _

He was so big. He was so heavy. He had weaponry between his legs—a sword of flesh and blood, a rifle of muscle.

He pulled back a bit, still gripping her. His hand dropped down and stroked her ass, his fingers rounding along her curves. The hand rubbed and cupped, and then reached between her legs.

Tea jumped, her mind suddenly clear. "Kaiba, no," she gasped.

He paused, his hand on her inner thigh. He began to move the hand upward again. She felt the fabric of her shorts move against her private parts through her underwear.

"Kaiba, I'm BLEEDING down there," she cried. She felt immensely grateful for her period. Her hassle was her salvation.

Kaiba slowly removed his hand from between her legs and gently placed it on her belly. Tea held her breath. His palm was tender on her stomach, his fingers curving around her almost from one side of her waist to the other.

"Does it hurt?" His voice was soft and the question sincere.

She swallowed and licked her upper lip, her eyes transfixed at the hand on her stomach.

"Does it hurt, bleeding like that?" The hand gripping her wrists let go and crossed over the other hand on her stomach.

"No," she whispered. She had weighed telling him that it did to get him to let her go, but she assumed it probably wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. "It's just annoying, sometimes." Why was he being so soft with her?

"You're not wearing a pad," he said. "I didn't feel one. So you must wear tampons."

"That's none of your business," she tried to wrench away, but he held her fast, wrapping his arms tight around her.

"Do those hurt?" His sounded genuinely curious and free of malice. He sounded almost eager. "It's supposed to hurt, right? Whenever something goes in there, it breaks the—it breaks the skin."

"Let me go, Kaiba." She tried to pull away, but he tightened his hold and pulled her back into his body again. He looped his elbow under her armpit and put his hand on the side of her neck, his cheek pushing into her temple. He kept one hand on her belly.

"Tell me," he whispered in her ear. "I won't let go of you until you tell me."

Tea contemplated screaming, but then imagined Josie or Madelyn or Delaney, her dance teammates, hearing it and bursting into the bathroom and seeing her like this. It would be all over the school, especially if Delaney, who was sweet and friendly but a gossiper, was the one to see it. Kaiba would say she came onto him, and it was her idea, and because they were afraid of him, they would believe him, or at least pretend to. The truth, however, was her ticket out.

She looked down at her feet.

"It's uncomfortable, at first," she whispered. "Then it doesn't bother you at all."

"If you use them, that means you're still a virgin. Right?"

"Yes," Tea's voice was even softer.

Kaiba's hands took turns resting on her stomach and stroking up and down her bare arms. Tea took a deep breath and let it go, watching his hands move with her breath. His touch was light and caring. _This is how a husband holds his wife_, she thought, _and this is how a husband touches his wife after he's made her pregnant. _She felt that pulling tingle on her breasts again.

The thoughts and sensations were unexpected and visceral and Tea shuddered, almost gagging. She felt panicked and out of control, like the whole universe had disappeared outside the walls and all that was left were the tiles, the toilets, and Kaiba's arms, which wrapped around her tightly.

"You said you would let me go," she said.

"I have one more question." He turned her around and slid his hands down her back until he was cupping her ass. He lifted her, his pull steady and insistent, until she was standing on tip -toe. He pushed her up against the wall until she lifted in his hands, pressed between his body and the tiles. He hoisted her higher until she was at his eye level, then relaxed his grip. She began to slide down the wall. She latched onto his shoulders.

Her legs wrapped around his waist almost reflexively. She couldn't help it.

Kaiba closed his eyes and breathed hard through his teeth. At first Tea thought she had hurt him. Then she felt his thing pressing into her pubic bone and knew that it wasn't pain that made Kaiba gasp.

He began to grand her against the wall again, his hands beginning their restless circuit over her body. Tea struggled to hold back tears.

"Are you a virgin?' His breath was thick in her ear. Underneath the fruit punch she smelled something meaty. She began to cry.

He touched her face, her neck. She felt the moisture of his lungs on her skin and whimpered. Her body felt a numbing wave of prickling from the side of her neck to her hip that was not all unpleasant. Her pubic bone felt bruised where he pressed his genitals against her, but she knew there would be nothing to show for it. Six aches appeared on her spine as the vertebra threatened to rub through the skin where it was pressed into the wall.

"Are you?"

She nodded. His grinding thrusts became more frenzied.

"Don't lie to me," his voice was a gravelly growl, but Tea heard something beneath it—was it desperation? She trembled, feeling ice lance through her followed by a flood of heat. She was sick. She had a fever. She was dying.

"I am, I am a virgin," she gasped.

He jerked and clenched his hands around her upper arms. Bone rubbed against bone as he pushed his pelvis further into hers ,and she cried out in pain. He didn't notice. He jolted rhythmically against her.

She stared at the wall opposite them as Kaiba howled and moaned and growled into her neck.

He relaxed and slumped onto her. She unwrapped her legs from around his waist and slid down until her feet touched the floor. He leaned on her, her shoulders taking his weight while his knees buckled. She tried to push him up off of her. His breathing was ragged. The sounds he made hung in the air around them. Tea felt them creeping up her spine and wafting on the back of her neck like ghosts.

Kaiba steadied himself and put his hands flat and light on her back, holding her to him. His heart thrashed against her face, like it was trying to break free from its sinewy bonds that suspended it behind his ribs.

When he took one hand off her back, she pushed past him and ran out into the hallway, down to the studio.

There was a note on the door. Practice had been canceled.

Tea didn't see why. All she saw were the words "dance team" and "canceled," and she started to cry because it all could have been avoided. She could have just gone home. This all happened for nothing.


	19. One Last Gentle Violation

This story is based on characters created by Kazuki Takahashi. Please review. I greatly appreciate it.

One Last Gentle Violation

Seto Kaiba, still in the girls' bathroom, unzipped his pants. He pulled them down slightly and carefully rolled off the full and drooping condom sheathing his cock. He threw it in the garbage can. It lay on top of the paper towels, a slug on lettuce, a naked man among brown-robed monks. Kaiba didn't care. It wasn't like the school could do a DNA test.

He wiped any excess off with a paper towel. It did make him feel better, knowing that his bodily fluids were safely contained. There would be no moisture cooling and stiffening in his clothes or in the folds of his body to remind him of that foul summer day. He felt light, relieved.

He glanced at one of the stalls and saw a blue uniform skirt, white blouse, and pink jacket draped over the divider. They were Tea's. He pulled them from the wall and placed them neatly over his arm. They seemed so small, like doll clothes. He stepped out into the hall.

Tea was walking briskly toward him, her hand frantically wiping at her face. When she saw him, her eyes widened and she veered away as he reached out and grabbed her arm.

She cried out and pulled away. Tears were running down her cheeks and traveling down the curve of her chin. Her tears made her eyelashes look darker.

Her fear didn't make him happy. It made him feel something else, something he couldn't identify, something painful.

"I won't hurt you," he said, lifting his hands and splaying them in front of her.

She stared at him, her arms wrapped around herself. He looked into her eyes and she didn't look away. Deep in her eyes, in the center of all the fear, glowed an ember of rage and hatred that made his heart jolt.

"You left your uniform in the bathroom," he said softly, holding out the clothes. "You'll probably need it."

She hesitated, rocked forward, rocked back, and then snatched the clothes off of his arm.

"I want to take you home." His mouth had moved before the filter in his brain could stop the thought from exploding off his tongue. She looked like he had slapped her. "I want to drive you to your house."

"I can walk."

"Please." He gripped her arm again. He felt as if he were asking her not to drain his blood. He felt like he was in that study, and he was smelling the sulfur of a just struck match…

Her face transformed then, softening and opening. The glowing ember of hate in her eyes dulled. Instead he saw his own face mirrored in the watery surface of her pupil. What he saw was pale, naked, and vulnerable, a wound with the scab ripped off, a forest stripped of its trees. It was horrifying.

He watched himself in her eyes as he tightened the muscles in his face and narrowed his eyes.

"I'm going to take you home."

He took her shoulder and pushed her in front of him. He kept her in front of him as he herded her down the hall and out the door. She walked with her head down, not so much lifting as swinging her feet. He watched her calves flex, her feet point slightly, and found himself riveted.

He followed her out the door and guided her from behind to his car. The driver hopped out of the car without so much as an exasperated sigh, ran around to the back, and opened the passenger door. He would have waited forever if Kaiba wanted.

Tea looked at the driver. "Thank you," she said. Her smile was wan, but still warm. "I don't live far away." She told him the address. "I hope it's not too much trouble."

"No," said Kaiba's driver, one of a fleet with a high turnover, one whom Kaiba never really bothered to get to know. "It's no trouble at all."

Kaiba wanted to punch the driver in the face.

Tea slid in and pushed herself against the opposite window. He sat next to her. The driver shut the door. The fifteen seconds from the shutting of the door to the rev of the engine was excruciating.

The car slid smoothly down the street. It was too long of a drive. It was too short.

Kaiba glanced over at Tea. She was staring out the window. The sun made her hair glow auburn. Her hands were clenched in her lap, resting on top of her uniform. The late sun's rays fell on her skin and painted it peach.

Kaiba couldn't do it, but he had to.

He scooted closer to her, reached over, and untangled the fingers of one hand from the other. He held her hand in his.

He found it interesting that holding her hand was more awkward than masturbating on her. He had to fight to keep his hand steady. Her hand was still and loose in his.

They were getting too close to her house. Kaiba had never before felt so happy for red lights. Her skin was so unbelievably soft and smooth, her bones were so small, fragile, and graceful. He felt clumsy and brutish.

He cradled her hand in both of his, stroking it with his thumbs. Did he hear her breath quicken and deepen?

The rest of the way, he didn't move at all, except to brush her hand lightly with his thumbs. He felt the stirrings of hunger for orgasm, but he was determined to ignore it this time. He would not be greedy. He would not let his appetite gape and bleed until it absorbed him.

The driver stopped in front of Tea's apartment complex. His voice went from a microphone in the front to the speaker in the back. "We're here, miss."

"Not yet," Kaiba barked. Tea flinched. He squeezed her hand and increased the pace of his thumbs. "I'll tell you when," he said, trying to put a bit of kindness in his voice.

They sat in silence. Tea's hand began to tremble. Kaiba studied that hand with his own. He memorized it—the seashell knuckles, the creamy skin, the tender palm. He kept rubbing it with his thumbs, like it was a tiny animal he wanted to tame.

He counted to sixty.

He counted to five.

He cleared his throat.

"Come and let her out now."

He waited until he saw the driver walk up to the door and pull the handle on the other side of the smoked, one-way window. He tossed Tea's hand away. His forced coolness and disdain felt painfully transparent.

She jumped out of the car, thanked the driver, and strode up the sidewalk.

As Kaiba was driven away, he swore he could feel the air next to him get colder. As he felt that cold creep over the seat and into his guts, he twisted his fists in his hair, and pounded them on his thighs, but it wasn't enough.

He wished for nothing more than a rock.


	20. Bursting

Yu-gi-oh and all related characters are the property of Kazuki Takahashi.

If you're squeamish about periods, it's probably best that you don't read this;

however, if you're cool with women's periods, please review!

Bursting

Tea entered her apartment. She was numb, but panic and despair paced outside and clawed at the border of that numbness.

"Hey, sweetheart!"

The panic slammed against the border and the border shuddered. Tea jumped. Her father placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Sorry, sweetie. I didn't mean to scare you." He tilted his head to one side and eyed her, his smile shriveling into a little frown of concern. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just fine. Just a little tired."

"Aren't you home early from dance?"

"It was cancelled, but I did some studying at the library."

"That's my girl." He squeezed her shoulder. It was good enough for him.

"I think I'll do some homework in my room," Tea said. She didn't have any homework. She didn't want to go to her room. She wanted her father to wrap her arms around her, but that was impossible.

She went to the bathroom and closed the door. She didn't turn on the light. She turned on the shower and pulled down her shorts. She yanked out her tampon and felt for the toilet paper, holding the tampon with two fingers as far away from herself as possible. She wrapped it tightly, in rolls so thick that when she was done it fit comfortably in her fist. She stripped out of her clothes. She stepped behind the curtain and into the stream of water.

The water provided less comfort then it did before. She could no longer deny what had happened, what Kaiba had done to her, this afternoon or in the closet. It all seemed too big and too strange for her to understand.

Her face flushed in the hot gushing water. He had touched her breasts, however briefly. He had grabbed her butt. Her last hope, her secret weapon, had not worked. Kaiba had not been repulsed by her menses. Instead, he had been intrigued. She had made her talk about it. She had only succeeded in keeping his hands from her crotch.

Anger and humiliation laced her blood. The rage and shame- thickened blood was a poison inside her. All of the muscles in Tea's abdomen fisted and twisted and knotted.

She doubled over, a cry passing partway through her lips before she bit off the rest and hissed it out through her teeth. She stumbled out of the shower's arc, staring wildly through the darkness at her feet.

Something was wrong.

The shower roared behind her as Tea shakily stepped from the shower, her hand flailing for the light switch. Her insides were wringing themselves out, drop by painful drop. The muscles in her lower back and inner thighs were being yanked and pulled by the contractions of her uterus.

Water diluted blood dripped pink onto the floor. As she watched, an enormous droplet of maroon and scarlet blood landed on the tile between her feet.

Tea dropped to her hands and knees and opened the cabinet under the sink. She reinserted a tampon. Her hands wouldn't cooperate with the wrapper, or with the toilet paper she used to mop up the mess. She turned off the shower and lay on the rug, feeling pale and listless.

She stood up too fast and watched the stars that drizzled across her vision while she dried off. She put her t-shirt back on and hurried to her bedroom. She put on new panties. She fell onto her bed and curled up into a ball.

Her parents were just down the hall, but she felt farther away from them than she did when she was visiting New York for a dance competition. She knew that if she went to her mother and father they would know something was wrong. She looked into the light-bulb edged mirror over her desk. Shame smeared her face and streaked her cheeks. She wanted to go to her parents, to let them hold her, but she didn't want to hurt them, or make them angry when they figured out what was going on.

Yugi was within walking distance, and Tristan and Joey were just phone calls away. The Spirit was there, too. The Spirit would know. Tea wouldn't be surprised if he could read minds. If the Spirit found out, Yugi would find out, and she wouldn't be able to bear it.

Tea sobbed and shook.

"Tea? Tea!" Her mother opened Tea's door and ran to her daughter. She wrapped her arms around Tea and Tea flinched. She remained tense in her mother's arms, but her mother didn't let her go. Her sweet, loving mother embraced Tea's disgusting, untouchable flesh. Tea saw her father over her mother's shoulder, his face stricken.

Tea waved her hand over her body from her breasts to her thighs. "It hurts," she sobbed.

"Do we need to call the doctor?" Her father asked.

"Oh, no, we don't need to call a doctor," her mother replied. She turned her head to face her husband and mouthed something that looked like "woman's problems."

Normally Tea would have been mortified. Her father blushed.

"Well," he said, "I'll just, um, let you take care of it. Can I get you anything, beautiful? You want me to go get you some ginger ale? Or a Dairy Queen?"

Tea shook her head.

"Okay. Feel better, sweetie. I love you."

Tea lay against her mother's shoulder as her mom gently rubbed her back.

"Shhh, honey. It's alright. I'm going to go get you some tea and Tylenol, and a hot water bottle. You just get some rest."

Tea sobbed. Her parents' kindness was killing her.

Her mother left the room. Tea heard her speak to her father, and then heard them laugh softly. Where before Tea yearned for secrecy, now she was desperate to tell someone, anyone, about what she was feeling. She wanted Yugi.

She picked up her phone from her night -stand and stared at its numbers. She hesitated, tapped one number, tapped another, and then hung up. She dialed the whole number, and then hung up. She dialed the whole number, and hit SEND. The phone rang once.

It rang twice.

It rang three times.

Tea hung up.

She thought about calling Kaiba.

She was TEMPTED to call Kaiba.

She was revolted by the Kaiba who rubbed, pumped, grabbed and moaned. She was afraid of him. The Kaiba she wanted to call was the Kaiba who softly cradled her hand in both of his, who held her tightly to his chest and rubbed her back, and who smelled good. She wanted to talk to the Kaiba with pain in his eyes, who begged her to let him take her home.

She knew that if she somehow got a hold of Kaiba, she wouldn't be speaking to that gentle boy. She would be talking to a cold, cruel C.E.O. who would call her crazy and reduce her to nothing with just a few choice words. She didn't know which Kaiba was worse—the unfeeling concrete Kaiba, or the humid and frenzied animal.

Ivan padded into her room. He stopped by her bed and looked up with her with large black-liquorice eyes. She stared back at him. He didn't blink. His expression said, "well?"

Tea lifted him into her arms, and he settled his head onto her chest. She lay back with him, placing him next to her and wrapping her arms around him.

"Ivan," she whispered. Her voice was hoarse and hiccupping. "Today, in the girl's room, a boy at school…" She paused and took a breath. "Wait, a couple weeks ago…"


	21. Altar

All characters are the property of Kazuki Takahashi. Please read and review. I would be very grateful and I welcome your feedback. Suggested musical accompaniment: "Soul One" by Blind Melon.

Altar

Kaiba gazed at three pictures. The three pictures sat on the desk in his private study, which was attached to his bathroom. Nobody had ever been in this study, not even Mokuba. As much of a meditation room as a study, this was where Kaiba had come up with the holographic dueling platform, the duel disk, and Battle City, which was due to launch in three weeks. This was where he brainstormed and drew up blue prints, and where he kept his shredder and his lead lined safe.

It was where he drew the picture of the Blue Eyes White Dragon girl. He had etched her from memory with gray, blue, and white colored pencils. She was propped on the desk by the wall and a paper weight the color of her eyes.

Kaiba ran his fingertips over her face. He stroked her pencil hair. She was a goddess. If he found her, life would make sense. She would wipe away all his weaknesses, and all his flaws.

He tried to picture meeting her. What would he say? What would he do? Would he try to put his tongue in his mouth, or rub against her, like he did with Tea?

NO. The thought was blasphemous.

Would he fall to his knees and flatten his face on the ground before her feet?

No. That thought was blasphemous to his other god—his dignity.

He decided that he would bow, and when she extended her thin, bone-china hand to touch his face and softly bless him, he would kiss it. If she wanted him inside her, he would oblige her. But if not, he would not even mention it. He would obey her. He would be content just to have her nearby. Her power gave him power, her safety made him safe.

He gave the paper one last stroke. _My Dragon Goddess, _he thought.

In the middle was a small picture in a plain plastic frame. It was of a slight woman in a yellow silk gown with a pink ribbon tied at her throat. Her wild black hair was escaping from her long braid. Golden stars formed a tiara that perched on her head, and a ruby hung in the middle of her forehead from a chain around her forehead. Her extended leg was entwined with ribbons, like a maypole, and her slippered foot, decorated with a rosette, pointed gracefully from underneath her tulle skirt. Seto's eyes shone from her face above her warm smile. The bottom of the picture read, "Adina as Princess Rowena, Magic Theater."

Kaiba remembered his mother laughing as she danced with him standing on her feet. He remembered how she would read to him, and how surprised and exultant she was when he started reading back to her. She would brush his hair from his forehead and kiss him on his brow in the same place a ruby would hang. He remembered how the crease where her arm met her shoulder seemed to be made especially for him, and how her body was his cradle. When his hands chapped in the winter, she would rub her hand crème into the cracks that lined his skin, and tell him about knights and princesses, fairies and unicorns, ogres and dragons.

He always wanted her to tell him more about the dragons. He had never wanted her to let go of his hands, or stop dancing, or stop laughing.

When Mokuba had come, she went. Mokuba had looked just like her. Mokuba WAS their mother.

The realization sent shivers up Kaiba's spine. Of course his mother wasn't the Blue Eyes! She was Mokuba! Her soul had never left Seto. It had just gone into his baby brother, that's all.

Kaiba wanted to smack himself. Why was he even thinking these things? It was all nonsense.

He wished, at the very least, that she had waited until he was older to pass away.

He put his fingertip to his lips, and then touched his mother's picture, right on the ruby on her forehead. _Mama_.

Next to Kaiba's right hand was a picture of Tea Gardner from the school yearbook. She was leaning against the cherry tree, her eyes big and sparkling, her mouth frozen mid-laugh. Her innocent, easy beauty was refreshing, cleansing. She wore her sweetness like she wore her skin—it was obvious and inextricable from her. Her back was arched away from the tree, her hips tucked slightly, her feet placed shoulder width apart, and her head was tilted. Her hands were laced behind her back. The pose was childlike, but, after all, she was still practically a child.

Her untouched lips and legs and breasts were so inviting.

Kaiba was starving for her skin.

He pressed his palm over her picture and thought of how her heart beat in the closet. He had excited her. She had looked up at him with moist eyes and pleaded, and he had given it to her, even though she didn't know how much she wanted it, even though neither of them knew exactly what it was.

She wanted him. She didn't pull away when he took her hand. She had wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. She had looked at him with that soft warmth in her eyes, even when she was angry just moments before.

Wonder of wonders, she was a virgin. Kaiba felt thrillingly ambiguous about that. On the one hand, he was now guaranteed the glory of taking her first. He would know her body before anyone else (anyone else! He shuddered to think.). He would have her at her ripest and sweetest. She would never again be as tight.

It was a scenario his mind dreamed new details for every hour. He weighed the pros and cons about having her on her belly versus having her on her back while he pushed her knees toward her chest. He had even contemplated sneaking birth control pills into her food, or somehow injecting her with a shot of Depo-Provera. He wanted to feel her inside walls with his bare cock and fill her up, soak her cervix with his sperm, without getting her pregnant.

And yet, Kaiba was reluctant about taking her virginity. Would she feel as good the next time he penetrated her? What about the tenth time?

And she seemed so lovely the way she was. He had imagined keeping her in a room in the mansion, where he would be her only visitor, and he would just look at her, and touch her, and dress her up in the prettiest clothes, except when he decided he wanted her naked. He would be Aesop's dog in the manger, or Ebenezer Scrooge, and her virginity would be his money—locked up and never spent. She was a precious work of art, one that must be admired but never touched. If he fucked her, part of what made her so beguiling would be gone. Besides, sex changed girls, and maybe he had changed her enough. At the same time, she didn't seem to have changed. She still gave annoying speeches, still danced for no reason, and still laughed with her friends—the pathetic glory-thief Yugi, the dog, and the boy with the hideous hair.

Tenderness washed over Kaiba with the force and salt-sweetness of high tide. He wished that Tea was with him. He wished he could talk to her about his mother, tell her all his memories, so his mother could live not only in his heart but in someone else's. If Tea were there, he would stand her on his feet and dance with her. Then, he would tuck her into his bed, and curl himself around her, their long blue-eyed bodies intertwined, their brown hair melting together. That way, she would feel safe, just like Kaiba did when his mother held him while he slept.

He picked up her picture and stared into her bright blue celluloid eyes with his prickling ones. "My little pet," he whispered, "my precious little pet. My pretty little, sweet little pet."

Kaiba heard his own voice whisper those words and startled in his chair. He knew he had heard his voice saying those words, but he didn't remember saying them. He wondered if he had fallen asleep, and had been dreaming.

Even if it had been a dream, and there was nobody in the room to hear him, Kaiba was humiliated. He looked over both shoulders. He was filled with a sickening, sinking feeling, not for the first time, that the room was bugged.

He looked back at the picture of Tea. It didn't matter whether he fucked her or not. Either way, he was in control. He would do whatever he wanted to her, for as long as he wanted, and, when he tired of her, he would cast her off.

He told himself this, but his belief in it was flimsy. He could see holes beginning to form and the edges beginning to tatter. But, if a drowning man finds something that floats, he will cling to it, even if it's just a soggy log.

So Kaiba clung as he sat in front of his goddess, his mother, and his pet.


	22. Exchanging Blows

All the characters are the property of Kazuki Takahashi, except for Miss Osika, who is based on one of my own elementary school teachers, who really did have that name and hair and kind personality.

Exchanging Blows

All Yugi, Joey, and Tristan could talk about was the upcoming tournament. Their enthusiasm infected Tea, who liked watching her friends play Duel Monsters, and liked to play it herself, when she was feeling brave enough. The truth was, Tea hated to lose almost as much as Joey. Whenever she lost a card game, she fought back acid tears of frustration, ground her irritation between her teeth, and took mental notes on what she did wrong. This was how she learned to dance, starting at the age of three, and it had helped her get to where she was at the barre today. She not only hoped to make Yugi and the Spirit proud someday, using the skills they had taught her, but also to impress them with her own innovations and strategy. She secretly went over her cards at night, imagining different opponents and what she could use against them. She kept lists of combinations in a little red tie-dye notebook—Dark Magician girl (2000)+Dark Magician in graveyard=2,300. Magician of Faith flipped=one card back from graveyard.

She sort of hoped that someone would challenge her to a duel at the very same time she dreaded it.

She was terrified of running into Kaiba, which she knew would be inevitable if she attended the tournament. Hearing Kaiba's name made her feel hot and released what felt like a storm of hornets into her stomach. She felt the same way about seeing him that she did about being challenged to a duel. She hoped that the next time she saw him, he would be the gentle, almost romantic boy that she knew he could be. That boy would listen when she told him that he scared her, and he would say he was sorry about the behaviors of the other Kaibas—the animal Kaiba that cornered her and hurt her, and the cold-hearted C.E.O. who terrorized and insulted her friends. However, Tea knew that this was unlikely, especially at Battle City, which was Kaiba's kingdom.

Kaiba hadn't been in school for a few days. Tea didn't mind. She had last seen him since she got out of his car on Thursday, and it was now Tuesday morning. She was perched on Tristan's desk, listening to the boys wax rhapsodic about the upcoming tournament.

Tristan was standing beside his desk, beaming. "Man, Kaiba's going all out for this!" Tea's stomach tightened at the CEO's name.

Joey hopped up on the desk beside Tea. "I heard he's turning the whole city into an arena!"

"Hey, get your ass off my desk, Joey, you'll break it!"

Joey ground his butt into the desk and turned to grin at Tristan.

"Oh, don't lie Tristan, you loves my butt."

"Especially when I'm kicking it. Now get off my desk so I can disinfect it."

"God, you people are disgusting."

All four stopped laughing and looked up. Kaiba stood there, briefcase in hand, staring at them over his nose. Tea looked at his face and then looked down at her lap. His eyes made her heart shiver.

"Take a hike, Kaiba," Joey said, adding depth and hoarseness to his voice.

"Insults, another thing you're a failure at. Face it, Wheeler, it's pointless for you to come to my tournament. "

"Oh, I'm coming, Kaiba, and I'm going to be in the finals, and when I get to the finals, I'm gonna duel you and cut you down to size!"

"Wheeler, for God's sake, you're a JOKE. Stop trying to be anything else." Kaiba leaned closer to Joey, his lip curling in amused disgust. "You are a dog," Kaiba's paused after every word, enunciating every syllable. "You belong in a kennel, with the other mangy mutts." He paused and looked into Joey's eyes to deliver the final blow. "You should be put to sleep, so you don't dirty the gene pool any more than your family already has."

Joey's eyes widened and his mouth opened slightly. Then it seemed to Tea that he was literally shrinking. He blinked rapidly in the shadow of his shaggy hair. Tea put his arm around him and rubbed his shoulders.

"Kaiba, that's going way too far," Yugi stepped in front of Joey.

Kaiba didn't respond right away. From the corner of her eye, Tea saw him staring at her, and dropped her gaze. For a second, the fist that gripped the handle of his briefcase was white-knuckled. A tremor shook his arm from his shoulder to the briefcase. Then, his muscles suddenly released. His arm and shoulder went slack and his grip loosened. Tea had never seen relaxation look so forced. It was a paradox. "The truth hurts," Kaiba finally said. "Can you imagine his offspring?"

"Shut up, Kaiba," Tea said. Her voice was quiet and steady. She didn't look away from Joey's flushed cheek and tight jaw muscles. She wasn't frightened, or even angry. She was just tired, tired of that cold, hard sarcasm. Tired of his crawling hands and heavy gasps. She wanted him to just go away. "Just shut up."

There was a moment of silence.

"What did you just say to me?" Kaiba's voice was just as quiet and steady as Tea's. It was a razor laid bare.

Tea looked up at him. "I said, shut up." She got up off the desk, gently guiding Yugi out of her way by placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sick of you, Kaiba. I'm sick of you hurting others. I'm sick of seeing the pain you cause." She looked at his eyes. What stood out to her was how small and black his pupils were. She thought of dry ice, cold so freezing it sears third degree burns into the flesh. "It's pathetic."

Kaiba lifted his hand. Tea, to her shame, flinched. If he hit her, he would get away with it. They all knew it. But a part of Tea was waiting for that blow. If he hit her, she would have self-defense as an excuse to leap at him, scratch at his face, break his nose.

Before she had recovered from the flinch Yugi was standing in front of her, his arms stretched out from his sides, protecting her as best he could, just as he had protected Joey and Tristan from that bully, just as, Tea thought, he would protect Kaiba himself if he had to. Tristan stepped to her side in a fighting stance.

"Don't even think about it, Kaiba," Tristan's voice was low and dangerous.

"Think about what?" Kaiba's hand flicked across his sleeve, brushing off some imaginary piece of dirt. "Like I would want to touch your whore."

The words were acid thrown into all of their faces. Tea could swear that, for just a second, her heart stopped beating. Her gorge rose, and she tasted sour, bitter vomit at the back of her throat.

In the shocked silence, Kaiba looked right at Tea. There was something burning deep within his eyes, something that melted the ice. His lips were quivering slightly as he opened his mouth. His voice was hoarse and strained.

"You don't know what pain IS, you little bitch," he whispered to her.

He turned away from them. Tea wondered if her friends had heard Kaiba say that. She wondered if they had formed a telepathic link. It was a crazy thought.

Kaiba had one more dagger in his sheath to throw as he walked back to his desk. "Have fun with your whore, geeks," he laughed scornfully as he strode away.

The teacher took her place at the front of the class, and everyone went to their seats. Tea sat down. All she felt were those words pounding in her ears and in her blood. Every echo was a punch to her chest and her stomach. She wrapped her arms around her torso and hunched over the desk. The teacher, a young woman famous around school for her beautiful hair and kind nature, began the math lesson. She was telling the students to take out their books and their notes.

"Tea," Miss Osika said. Tea knew she was imagining it. That voice was so wispy and thin and warm compared to the booming blizzard of words that rained blows on her.

"Tea?" This time the voice was louder and Tea looked up. The other students were bent over their work. Miss Osika's concerned face was right next to hers. It reminded her of her father's face when she came home from school last Thursday. "Tea, why don't you go get some water? I'll write you a pass." Tea followed Miss Osika up to the big desk at the front of the room on shaking legs, feeling incredibly vulnerable and exposed and fully expecting another something else to hit her—a snort of cruel laughter, a word, even a physical assault. She stared at Mrs. Osika's waist-length, wavy, earth colored hair that was tied back with a piece of green elastic.

Miss Osika handed her a pass. The pass said "Nurse's Office."

"You look very ill, Tea. Why don't you lie down," Miss Osika whispered. "Do you need someone to go with you? You look like you might faint."

Tea felt like a little girl in elementary school. Miss Osika used to teach kindergarten, and would probably let Tea sit in her lap if Tea was sick enough. For now, Tea had another request. She whispered, "Joey."

"Alright," Miss Osika whispered back. "Just sit tight in the hallway for a few minutes. I'll say I'm sending Joseph on an errand, and he can take you."

Tea leaned against the cold locker out in the hall and realized she didn't want to go to the nurse's office. She wanted to rip Kaiba to shreds. She wanted to feel his teeth shatter under her fist.

Joey appeared next to her. His body radiated rage. Some crimson still clung to his cheeks. Tea saw that he had tears in his eyes.

"I don't want to go to the nurse's office," Tea said. "Let's just walk around for a little bit."

Joey ran his sleeve over his eyes. "That BASTARD," he hissed. "That _shitty _SON OF A BITCH. That GODDAMNED FUCKER."

"I know, Joey." Tea put her hand on his shoulder and led him down the hall, the need to comfort and her affection subduing her own anger and hurt.

"I'll kill him. I'll kill him for what he said, Tea."

"I know, I know," Tea was happy she had asked for Joey to come with her. He needed out of that classroom more than she did. "You're better than he is, Joey, never, ever forget that." She stopped and put her hand on his face. He turned and looked into her eyes. "Don't ever, ever forget that, Joey. I NEED you to remember it."

Joey took her hand from his face and held it in both his own. "I promise, Tea." He took a deep breath. "I'd do anything for ya, ya know that? I'd do anything ya asked." There was a hint of a plea in his voice and in his eyes.

Tea knew from the way he looked at her that he was begging her for permission. She contemplated giving him that permission. She bit the inside of her lower lip. No. It was too dangerous for Joey.

"Please leave Kaiba alone, Joey," she finally said. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"I can take him, Tea," Joey's hands tightened around hers and his eyes were fierce.

"I know you can. But it would be better if you just prove to him how good you are. He would sue you if you touched him, Joey. It wouldn't matter how much you wouldn't be able to give." Her voice became even softer. "You are BETTER, Joey. You might as well squish a cockroach." The words sounded very hollow and false, but Joey straightened slightly. "He'll know it someday. He'll know that you're so much happier than he is."

Joey thought for a moment, and then nodded slowly. "You're right, Tea!" His face broke into a huge smile, a smile that soothed Tea's stung emotions.

"I know," she said. "C'mon, we'll take a cruise around the halls for a little bit, and then go back to class."

They walked together, comfortable in their companionship. Their friendship was an aloe balm on a burn or a roaring fire on a winter day. Tea knew then that she was right. Even if Joey never beat Kaiba in a duel, he would always be happier, just as she would always be happier, no matter what he did to her.

From the entryway of the classroom, Kaiba had watched Tea look into Joey's eyes. He had watched her hand cup Joey's cheek. He had watched her mouth as it curved into a smile, and, if he had been feeling poetic, would have likened it to watching a sunrise.

As he watched her hands and her mouth and her eyes as they were tender to the mutt, he felt the same icy blows he had dealt.


	23. Captured with a Kaiba

Yu-gi-oh property of Kazuki Takahashi.

Captured with a Kaiba

Tea knew that Kaiba's big Battle City tournament would not be a normal, happy day playing games in the park. She did not, however, expect to be kidnapped, least of all kidnapped and held hostage with Seto Kaiba's younger brother.

She believed that the worst was over when she heard that Bandit Keith had run screaming from the abandoned warehouse, but then Bakura stumbled down the sidewalk, pale and weak, blood pasting a bandage to his arm. A strange boy was supporting him, one hand on Bakura's shoulder, the other on his chest. Then, minutes later, Tea was snatched up, a mothball-scented arm around her neck, and yanked into the dank dimness of a van that smelled like armpits. A cloth was tied over her eyes. After what seemed like an hour, but was probably only ten minutes, the van stopped, and she was hauled down a chilly, echoing corridor with fluorescent lighting so harsh she could see it through the blindfold. They yanked off the cloth, taking a few strands of hair with it, and tossed her in a room full of boxes and high windows that concentrated the sunlight on the ceiling and high on the wall.

Tea thought the little person they threw in with her was a girl, the hair was so long and lustrous. When the figure rose to its hands and knees, raised its head and shook the hair out of its eyes, her stomach flooded with ice water. She remembered the picture dangling around his brother's neck, remembered the hands, the sounds….

"Hey," the boy said. His voice was gravelly for a child. "I know you."

Tea swallowed. She couldn't think about the closet now, or about who this boy was, or to whom he was related.

"Yeah," the boy known as Mokuba said. The muscles around his eyes softened with relief. "You're Yugi's friend. You're Tea. You're in my big brother's class. I'm Mokuba Kaiba," He stepped toward her, smiling as if she not only knew him, but also liked him. She must like him, simply because he was a Kaiba.

"Yeah, that's me." Tea had no idea what else to say. She knew she should be taking charge, thinking of a way out, at least comforting the boy, and she would. She just needed a few minutes to get her breath, and assess the situation.

"Don't be scared, Tea," Mokuba said. "Seto will be here soon. See, I have this." He opened one side of his puffy sleeveless jacket and reached inside it. Tea heard a zipper ripping. It occurred to her that this wasn't the first time she was trapped alone in a storage space with a Kaiba unzipping an article of clothing.

Mokuba pulled out a device the size of a beeper from his hidden pocket. It was made of a shiny, silvery metal that pulled the light from the ceiling down into itself and made it undulate and twist, as if the metal was a living, amphibious skin.

"This isn't just a communication device, it's a GPS system. Even if I'm unconscious, and can't tell Seto where I am, he can still find me with our satellite."

Tea was anxious to keep Kaiba a last resort. "I still think we should find a way out."

Mokuba's brows tightened. "You don't think my big brother can save us?"

"It's not that," Tea said. "I just don't think it would do us any good to just sit, you know? We should work to break ourselves out, and if your brother comes, awesome, and if we break ourselves out before he comes to us, well, the less time here, the better, right?"

Mokuba nodded. "Right. I don't want to be sitting around when Seto comes. We Kaibas NEVER just sit and wait." He glanced around the room, up, down, and around. Tea followed his gaze—boxes to window, and window to boxes. Some of the boxes were cardboard, and some were wood. Were they light enough to stack? Were they strong enough to hold if someone who was about one hundred pounds stood on them? Then there was the window. Could they open it? And, if they could open it, could they get through? Tea was slim and flexible, and Mokuba had a paunch of baby fat on his belly, but it was barely noticeable. Tea had hips and breasts to contend with.

If anyone was getting out, it was Mokuba.

"Mokuba," she said, "Let's start stacking boxes."

Mokuba grinned, bent his knees, and shoved a box into place with a scratchy whisper. She joined him.

After a few hours of pushing together, pulling together, climbing and sweating and heave-ho-ing together, Tea was anxious to save the boy with the wild raven hair. She flinched, once, when she almost slipped off a box, and Mokuba, who was below her, put his hands on her waist to steady her. The wave of revulsion she felt turned to guilt when she turned her head and saw his wide denim colored eyes staring at her with real concern. After that, she made sure that she was always in a position to catch Mokuba if he fell, but, as their tower of blocks grew taller, Tea noticed that Mokuba seemed as protective of her as she was of him. Soon, they fell into a rhythm.

When they reached the top, it finally occurred to Tea that even if the window did open, and they could fit through it, it wouldn't mean a damn thing if they were twenty feet off the ground. Tea blinked in surprise when she saw that they were four feet up. The way Mokuba almost tumbled off the tower let her know he felt the same shocked relief she did.

The window was surprisingly easy to jimmy open. One boost had Mokuba perched on the sill. Close up, it was apparent that Tea wouldn't fit. She added another reason to her growing list of how having bountiful breasts was more a curse than a blessing.

"Be careful, Mokuba," she said. She hoped that he would find Kaiba, and, in finding Kaiba, find Yugi. The Spirit would save her. He always would. She didn't mind waiting for him.

"Tea," Mokuba looked frightened. "What about you? I don't want to leave you here."

Tea put her hands on Mokuba's shoulders. Her arms almost pulled him to her, but she something stopped her from hugging Kaiba's brother.

"I'll be alright, Mokuba," she said. "You go find Kaiba. Yugi will find me."

She lifted her hands from Mokuba's shoulders and crawled, slid, and stepped down the boxes to the floor. When she looked up, Mokuba was still there.

"I'm going to send help, Tea." His eyes were gunpowder and storm clouds. "You just wait here. I promise I'll send help." Then he disappeared, his hair trailing behind him.

The ends of Mokuba's hair disappearing into the bright afternoon , and the dust motes swirling in his wake, were the last things Tea remembered before she felt something clawing at the edges of her brain, dragging her down into a shadowy half-sleep, and suspending her there in that murky, desperate place like an anchor tied around her waist.

"You belong to me," a whiny, harsh voice said from inside her. "And you will do everything I tell you to."


	24. Reflexive Rescue

Writing this chapter was agony. I had no idea how to do it without going into too much exposition or plagiarizing, so I revised a lot to reach a happy medium. This is heavy on actual plot from the English dub, so, hopefully it was accurate without being, again, plagiaristic. I really wanted to do a "behind the scenes, what they were really thinking" type of fic, and this is the muddy part. I hope you enjoy.

Reflexive Rescue

Compared to collecting the Egyptian God Cards, rescuing Mokuba seemed like a simple task. After all, Kaiba had had to rescue Mokuba before, and Lumis and Umbra, once he and Yugi had their numbers down, were pathetically simple. With Obelisk, what would have been an irritation was actually a pleasure. There was nothing quite like using a god card. It was like what he felt when he had an orgasm, only the pleasure was undiluted by any shame or secrecy or sadness. This was a pleasure he wanted to lord over the world. Obelisk, the mighty Juggernaut, was his machine, his vessel, and, piloting Obelisk, he was able to feel everything Obelisk felt. Controlling a god card was not merely controlling a hologram. It was as if he possessed Obelisk, and from his seat in its skull he could feel the muscles bunch and the lightning gather in his blood as if it were his own.

Oh, it was glorious.

At first, he was surprised Mokuba had been able to escape on his own. Watching Mokuba running toward him, he felt pride at his little brother's new independence . It made him feel like he had succeeded in promoting Mokuba's resourcefulness. So far, he had been a good father.

He had watched Yugi take Slifer from the pierced bald freak with the Mickey Mouse shoes, or, at least it looked like Yugi. There was something strange about the midget with the multicolored spike hair. Sometimes, Kaiba could hear Yugi's voice deepen when he watched him duel. The shrimp's eyes looked harder and older, unsettlingly so. Kaiba could even swear that Yugi grew a few inches during intense duels. During this duel, however, he only felt jealous that it was Yugi, not he, that was winning Slifer. Using Obelisk to subdue another god card would be exquisite. He could imagine himself inside Obelisk again, feeling the lightning gather in his fists and fly from his palms, seeing Slifer fall and then feeling the slick surface of the card between his fingers as it was handed over…

No matter. He would win Slifer from Yugi soon enough. The delayed gratification would make it even better, and Yugi was a more worthy opponent than the creepy mime.

Yugi had insisted on accompanying him and Mokuba to the docks to meet Marik. Kaiba hoped that Yugi wouldn't stand in the way of his vengeance. He could see it now—he would be standing over Marik, ready to drive the heel of his leather shoe into his teeth, and Yugi the pacifist and all his little friends would pull him off. That would mean Kaiba would have to waste valuable ass-kicking time subduing the little Gandhis before getting back to stomping in Marik's teeth and taking his god card. He didn't care about Yugi's little friends.

Except, Tea would be there.

Mokuba was really worried about her. "We have to help save her, Seto!" He was practically in tears. "I couldn't have escaped without her. Promise me we'll help rescue her!"

"She'll be fine, Mokuba," Kaiba had said, speaking around the rock that had lodged itself in his esophagus. Tea? Tea Gardner, of all people, had saved Mokuba?

They had arrived at the dock, where Marik was waiting. He had leaned out of the helicopter before it landed. Kaiba 's eyes swept around the scene, taking in the details. There were two platforms by the dock. Wheeler was standing on one platform, and Kaiba could see that he was chained to it. The sun glared off the chains.

The helicopter was coming in for a landing next to a crane. Hanging from the crane's hook were ropes that were wrapped around a large crate that looked to weigh at least 800 lbs. The crate dangled over the other platform. On the platform was a simple wooden chair, looking rather incongruous with the rest of the setting. The crate cast a shadow over the platform. Kaiba wondered what the chair was for.

The chopper landed, and Yugi leaped out of it and ran to the platform. Moron. Didn't he know it could be booby-trapped? Not to mention the fact that Wheeler sounded strange, like two voices were speaking through his mouth. One of the voices, the one underlying Wheeler's normal voice, was nasal and whiny, even more than Wheeler's.

He heard a giggling coming from behind Wheeler. He looked up and saw Tea walking down the metal staircase that led to the dock. Even now, he marveled at the grace of her walk, at her ability to float down steep metal stairs, slick with ocean spray, in high heels. The walk was hers, but that laugh was not; it was a cruel parody. Underneath Tea's natural, vivacious giggle was the same grating, harsh voice speaking through Joey. Her eyes were dull and lifeless, her face blank, like she had been lobotomized. Kaiba would have preferred to see her eyes filmed with tears and fright, her face pleading, than to see her like this—empty and numb and dead.

She climbed onto the other platform, and sat down on the chair. Kaiba gazed at her. She was so small and young and fragile, so absolutely helpless. He liked that she was that way when he was pressing himself against her and putting his hands on her body; it made him feel powerful, strong, even more mature, but her vulnerability sickened him now.

Through Joey, Marik was describing what he was planning to do. Kaiba listened to him drone on and looked at Tea sitting on that platform. She wasn't even blinking, just staring into space with those dead eyes. The crane's engine turned over and growled awake. He watched the shadow of the crate cage Tea in a square of darkness as one of Marik's mind slaves positioned it over the chair, over her.

At that moment, all went silent, except for a little voice in his head that said

_No. No. Not Tea. No. _

He reflexively jumped forward, but the Wheeler/Marik thing snickered and whined that if he interfered, the crate would be dropped. And, for the first time in his life since Gozaburo molded him in his own image, Kaiba froze.

As he stood there, his stomach churning, he remembered the icy water from the hose and shivered. He remembered Mrs. Prosser's body pinning his legs against the table, her hands pushing him down as she bound him in the…diaper (just remembering the sensation, and seeing the cloth in his mind's eye, made his stomach lurch toward his throat and the tears prick his eyes). This was like that. Marik was another Prosser, another Gozaburo. How many were there in the world?

Tea sat still in the chair. Her back was straight, and in the shadow of the crate her face was solemn. Kaiba was struck by the regality of her pose. He thought of her smile, and her shining eyes, never aimed at him. He imagined that smile, those soft eyes, that soft skin, the long, dainty bones, being gone, crushed under the crate.

His heart convulsed. He felt a sensation that he'd only ever felt with Mokuba. His heart was trying to heave itself through his chest and pull itself toward her. Where before there were words—denials and her name—now there was only this sensation. The sensation made inaction impossible. He gave into it.

What he did next was not a conscious action on his part. In retrospect, he knew that it would seem stupid to anyone but him, but to him, it made perfect sense. He just grabbed a card and threw it.

When it worked, when the men were disarmed, when the crane was pulled away from Tea and she was safe, he could go back to caring about the god cards. After all, that was the whole point of this exercise. The sensation in his heart passed as soon as Tea was safe

He didn't give Tea, or the sensation, another thought until after the duels on the Kaiba Corp blimp were over.


	25. In the Eye of the Hurricane

In the Eye of the Hurricane

Kaiba sat in his suite on the dirigible. Obelisk lay in his cupped palm, and his Blue Eyes White Dragons lay on his thighs.

He touched the tip of his finger to Obelisk's face. Such power. Still, Obelisk was not his favorite card. The Blue Eyes could never be replaced.

He looked at the Blue Eyes cards that lay on his lap, neatly placed on each thigh. With a shudder, he thought of the girl in his dreams, that angel with the long white hair. Obelisk was simply a way of getting closer to her. With each god card, he got closer. He didn't know how he knew this.

He was so hard it hurt. It was the sweetest, loveliest pain.

Tea Gardner. She was on the blimp. Fuck, she had begged to be there. And he knew why. He had saved her life. She couldn't deny him anything now. Plus, he had a god card. He was unstoppable. She knew it. If she would give it to Yugi, why wouldn't she give it to him? He shuddered again. He had no choice now. He knew he would have a public victory over Yugi. He had to have a private victory.

He gently lifted each Blue Eyes from his lap and stacked them neatly with Obelisk. He placed the Blue Eyes cards and Obelisk on top of his deck, and then stood. He stooped and felt along the wall until he found what he was looking for. A perfect square opened in the wall with soft pop. He swiftly swung the lock, opened the safe, and lovingly placed the deck inside. He gave it a final stroke, as if telling it he would be back soon.

He closed the safe and the hidden panel, then stood. As he left his room and walked down the hall, he thought of the white haired angel, and asked for forgiveness for what he was going to do.

**********

Tea woke up disoriented, sore, and goose-pimpled. She heard someone breathing softly next to her. For a moment, the breathing frightened her. She could only imagine who it could be—Marik? Bakura? Kaib—she jolted awake.

Her butt was numb and her neck was stiff from sleeping upright in a wooden chair. In front of her, lying in a bed, was Mai Valentine. Yes. Tea knew what was going on now. Marik had sent Mai's mind to the Shadow Realm.

Tea shuddered and reached out to pat Mai's shoulder through the sheet, wincing at the dull pain in her back. She gazed at her friend's face. She thought about the time they were on Pegasus's island, and Mai had guarded her while she changed her clothes. "We gotta stick together," Mai had told her.

She wished that Mai was her sister. They could always protect each other, that way, just like Joey and Serenity protected each other. In a perfect world, Mai would be her sister, and Yami would be her husband, and they would live together, with Joey and Tristan, and maybe even Duke and Bakura, alongside the Nile River. Joey would marry Mai, and Tristan would marry Serenity. Duke would find a beautiful girl (Ishizu, perhaps?), and Bakura would finally be purged of the Spirit of the Ring, free and happy. As long as Mai was still breathing, there was still hope for that.

Tea had to get up and stretch. She had to rinse off the goosepimples with nice, warm water. Mostly, she had to empty her aching bladder, which felt stretched so thin that she swore it was springing little pin-prick leaks. Before she could attend to her own comfort, however, she had to ensure Mai's safety. She had to find someone to watch Mai.

She stood slowly, easing her breath through her pursed lips as her cold muscles unkinked. Her left butt-cheek and right shoulder wouldn't cooperate, and she had to do a few loose swings of her arm and from her hip to get the blood flowing and loosen the socket. She walked slowly to the door and unlocked it, moving slightly sideways so she could keep an eye on Mai's sleeping form. She tried to be as quiet as possible when sliding the lock back. She knew she wasn't doing it to keep from disturbing Mai. She just knew that the way things were now, she didn't want to draw any attention to herself.

Even though she was trying desperately to convince herself that the worst was over, she knew that when the sun rose, something else would be there to confront her and her friends. This calm was an illusion.

As she suspected, a guard had been stationed outside Mai's door. The guard leaned against the wall, relaxed but alert in his stiff pressed navy suit. He glanced at her as she stepped through the door.

"I would like to wash up," she whispered. "I'll be right back. Could you go in with Mai? She'll be safer if someone were in the room with her, and she won't be afraid if she wakes up."

"Yes, ma'am, but let me check your room first. Which one is it?"

"Last one at the end of the hall."

Tea waited by the door as the guard went down the hall and entered her room. He was gone less than a minute.

"All clear. When you come back, knock five times, two seconds between each knock. That way I'll know it's you."

"I'll do that," Tea assured him as he closed the door behind him. She slipped down the hallway and went into her room, locking herself inside.

She leaned her head against the wall while she went to the bathroom, letting her muscles relax. She listened to the hum of the dirigible's engine, letting her mind and bladder empty. She didn't remember much of what had happened down at the pier, and didn't particularly want to. All she knew and wanted to know was she had encountered Marik, but she was okay. It was Mai that needed attention, not her, so she wasn't going to worry about herself.

Her shoes felt like they were about as stable as toothpicks and her stockings felt like they were made of wool. She bent over and kicked and yanked until they were both off. She stood up, pulled her underpants up, and stepped out of her shorts. She ran a hand through her hair. It still felt clean and smooth. She had washed it that morning. Her armpits, groin, feet, and face, however, could use a little soap and water.

She flicked on the lights, smacking her hands to her smarting eyeballs. As dim as they were, they felt like they were a thousand kilowatts. When her vision returned to normal, she looked around the room, peering into every corner and standing on tiptoe to peer on every shelf, looking for any hidden cameras or peepholes. When she was sure she was safe, she turned off all the lights except the one over the bed, tucking the room back into darkened relief, and unbuttoned her blouse.

Wearing only her underwear, she found a washcloth and wet it. She scrubbed her face and wiped her armpits. She propped each foot on the lip of the sink and lathered the bottoms and between each toe. She pulled her underwear down slightly to clean between her legs. To her joy, she found a small toothbrush and some toothpaste. She draped her blouse over her shoulders, washed her hands, and brushed her teeth.

As she cleaned up, she thought about Mai and Joey. Why wasn't Joey sitting with Mai, too? Tea knew he really liked her, and was maybe even in love with her. Mai probably felt the same way about Joey. Mai was more likely to come out of her coma with Joey encouraging her.

She thought about Yugi and Yami, how Yami had saved Joey and Mai by blocking Marik's blast with his body. She felt a bursting in her heart, thinking about Yami, how he was willing to endanger himself over and over for his friends and coming out alive every time. He was so strong, so loving, and so brave. He made her feel small and young, but those feelings felt right with him. After all, he was probably thousands of years old. She trusted him with her life. She could give herself to him, curl up in his hands, with absolutely no hesitation.

And yet, on their date, while they sipped sodas, she couldn't bring herself to tell him about Kaiba and the closet, or Kaiba in the bathroom. Her body wanted to tell him—her tongue and lips flexed to form the words, but the dominant part of her brain forced her jaw to clench. How could she even think of telling him about it? What could he possibly do? What could the information possibly do to him, and his opinion of her?

Tea would smile through excruciating pain, and trudge through the greatest indignities, no matter how unjust, in silence before risking her friendships.

She heard the doorknob turn and click against the lock.

Her heart froze.

The doorknob rattled.

Tea clutched her blouse to her body, clenching it tight over her breasts. She couldn't fit under the bed.

Silence.

Tea started to shake. She couldn't move. There was nowhere to move.

A key entered the lock. With a click, the lock retreated back into its chamber.

The door opened, and Kaiba stepped in.


	26. For a Moment

All characters belong to Takahashi. I make no money from this. This may seem hopeless. Next chapter will be a little better. Cross my heart.

For a Moment

For a moment, all the air was sucked out of the room. For a moment, the world stopped turning, and the molecules that made up solid, liquid, and gas stopped their vibrations. In that moment, Tea looked into the eyes of Seto Kaiba and felt something inside her snap.

_This is what it's like to die of fright_, she thought.

Kaiba stepped through the door.

_Run_.

He closed the door. Locked it.

_Kill him_, something inside her screamed, _kill him, or he'll kill you! _

He turned to face her. His eyes were bright.

"You locked me out," he whispered. "I saved your life, and you locked me out."

"No, you didn't." Tea hated how her voice shook, how she couldn't coax it any louder than a harsh whisper. She clutched her blouse closed over her bare breasts, hating them, hating her whole body--its weakness, its soft femininity. "You _did not_ save my life."

"I did," his voice became slightly higher, but no louder. "That crate was going to crush you. The man in the crane was going to drop it on you, but I didn't let him. I protected you. " Kaiba was speaking softly and quickly. There was something childlike in his speech. His eyes grew larger and sharper as they stared at her. So far, he hadn't seemed to notice she was pretty much naked. She realized that he was telling the truth, and the realization weighed down her heart with fear, despair, and guilt—if it were true, was she ungrateful? If it were true, would she have no right to be afraid, to deny him?

"I protected you, and soon I'll have all the god cards, including Yugi's," he said. His voice was back to its smug timbre. " You saw what they can do, and soon they'll be mine. You can't even imagine the full extent of what that means, but even you should know that it makes me the most powerful duelist, and the best man." Slowly he removed his coat, and tossed it over a chair. He stood and looked at her, cocking his head. The light over the bed was a dim halo, but even in the sepia and blue-black shadows his eyes glowed, so cold they were more silver than blue.

Tea stared back at him. For several moments, she struggled to speak. It was like the dreams she had sometimes where any sound she would make, if she could make any sound at all, would come out a hoarse whisper, no matter how hard she tried to rupture the barrier in her throat and scream, and where the very air itself was a spider's web that trapped and paralyzed while the nightmare came closer, and closer….

"I'm not going to do anything with you," she rasped.

Kaiba's eyes widened, and his face went slack. He looked down and rubbed the back of his neck, running his hand through his hair. Then he straightened his shoulders and looked her in the eye.

"But you would with Yugi, wouldn't you?"

The words seared into Tea. Wasn't that what she thought about when she touched herself, she and the Pharaoh kissing, embracing, and touching on the feather mattress by the Nile? Did Kaiba know?

Her feelings showed on her face, because Kaiba continued. "Yes, you would, and you probably do. You even let the mutt do what he wants with you. I saved you. Yugi didn't. Wheeler didn't."

"I don't do anything with them," Tea wanted to wake up, warm and safe, with Ivan beside her and her parents down the hall, feeling the sweet relief that a nightmare was just that. "I told you I didn't."

Kaiba mulled that over excruciatingly slowly. Tea looked everywhere, looking for an escape hatch, a place to run. Could she jump on the sink, and then push open a ceiling tile? No, the ceiling was smooth molded plastic. Under the bed? No, no space under there. Then Kaiba opened his mouth.

"You can prove it to me."

"No!" Tea felt the threads of her self unraveling—her innocence, her bravery, were slipping between her fingers—but she knew, in that moment, that she would fight.

"I took care of you!" Kaiba's words hissed between his teeth and Tea again heard in his voice and saw in his face the desperation that blindsided her in the closet and outside the girls' bathroom.

"I took care of Mokuba," she replied. "I saved his life. I protected him. We're even."

Seto's eyes softened, turning from ice to ocean water. "He is grateful," he said, his voice soft. "As am I." He lifted his arms. "As you should be." He took a slow step toward her.

When he moved, Tea unfroze and flung herself backward, hitting the wall behind her, twisting to the side and hurling herself through space as he stepped forward. The room was so small, not like Joey and Yugi's. She soon barked her shin on the bed, but she made herself keep moving, onto the bed, but he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her down onto the mattress. His hand clamped over her mouth. His breath streamed around her face. It smelled like mint and bitter coffee.

"Let me do this!" His voice made her shudder. She thrashed her head back and forth, but he just pushed on her mouth harder, grinding her lips on her teeth, as she kicked and tried to roll away. One arm, the arm that kept her blouse shut in a death grip, was pinned between them, but the one that was free went to the back of his head, grabbed his hair, and yanked. She felt the hairs pull loose of his scalp. A short cry burst from his throat, a cry that tapered into a hiss. His hand spread and covered her nose as well as her mouth, cutting off her air.

He was quiet for a few seconds, looking down at her as if he himself couldn't believe what he was doing.

At first, it wasn't so bad, not being able to breathe. Tea thought it would be better than the alternative. But as the oxygen in her lungs burned away, panic set in. "Listen," he whispered, "I won't hurt you. I'm only doing this because you just hurt me."

Tea's lungs felt like shriveled husks. Her body shuddered under his as she sobbed without sound.

"You'll like this," he whispered. "I can promise you that. You liked it before."

_Please Dear God_, Tea prayed, _Please make this quick. No matter what you give me, dying like this or whatever he's going to do, make it be quick. _

"I know you like it when I hold you," his voice was even softer. "Be good for me, and I'll be good for you."

Tea swore the little pockets of her lungs were exploding, one by one.

"Be good," he whispered, his cheek against hers. He relaxed his airtight grip on her face, and she eagerly sucked in air through the gaps of his fingers as he turned the light off over the bed. In the darkness he reached back. Tea heard him open his pants.

_This is it_, she thought. _I've failed_.

She felt his naked hand on her breast. It was gentle.

_I could scream_, she thought, _and Yugi will save me_.

The thought of Yugi coming in and seeing her like this, naked and frightened underneath Seto Kaiba, made her sick.

His breathing went into its familiar cadence, quick and hissing. His hips began the customary grinding. His hand left her face to join his other hand, only now the journey was bare skin on bare skin.

_Scream. Scream now_.

She opened her mouth, gasped, tried to make a sound, but all that came out were little cries and sobs.

Kaiba answered her cries with a moan. It was a different sound than anything she'd heard him make before. It sounded almost like he was crying himself. Along with this new sound was a new sensation. He was pressing something hard and rubbery and smooth against her belly. Tea had no illusions this time that it was a screwdriver or a gun or a switchblade. She knew it was his naked penis. The tip of it was damp.

The strange shape and heat of his penis against her were so surreal Tea was only vaguely aware of his fingertips sliding down her rib cage. He pushed himself up so that he straddled her, his haunches pushing her thighs apart, his hands grasping her wrists. Tea closed her eyes, not even wanting to see the shape of his silhouette in the glow of the city lights that shone through the windows.

He moved so that his knee was between her legs and he could lie back down, his groin pushing into her side. He tentatively stroked down her belly until he reached her panties. He cupped her through the silk, and then used one finger to push the cloth aside. For a moment, Tea was never so aware of flesh and nerves, the difference in the texture of skin from one body part to another. He stroked, and she shuddered. For a moment, to her horror, that wonderful wet warmth flowed from her cheeks to her nipples to her abdomen to her crotch and all the way down to her toes, melting muscle, and it felt so good, and then he pushed his finger in and for a moment—

A white-hot knife. A searing sting.

Tea finally could scream, even though it was only a feeble little cry. And as she screamed, Kaiba came.

There was something new added to the convulsions of his body and the moans and grunts he buried in her hair. Tea felt his penis pulse and twitch as hot slime coated her side and stomach.

She let her head loll to the right. Through the tearing pain, she saw the lights of Domino city below. In those lights, she saw the bed table, and on the bed table she saw a Kaiba Corp pen. It was smooth and sharp and silver—not surprising that Kaiba would tie everything back to the Blue Eyes White Dragon—and Tea saw herself picking up the pen and thrusting it into Kaiba's neck. She could imagine the resistance of his skin at first, before it yielded and warm wet blood would flow from the artery. She would see the shock on his face from the lights of the city, and with the shock, there might also be the pain of betrayal.

Tea, very calmly, very smoothly, reached for the pen.

She had just touched it with her fingertips when Kaiba grabbed her arm and gathered it in, along with the rest of her, close to his body. He lay there, panting, holding her tightly, while his sperm turned cold and sticky on her stomach.

For a moment, a moment she was sure would seep into every other moment of her life until she died, Tea mourned. She grieved not only for her plan, but for the person she was, the person who would never dream of harming any living thing. She grieved for the gift she could have given, now spoiled by Kaiba's intrusion.

For a moment, just a little moment that lasted way too long, Tea Gardner lay in Seto Kaiba's arms and wanted to die.


	27. The Afterglow

Tea didn't know how long they lay there. She felt that she might have blacked out. Kaiba's breathing was now slow and even, his stomach moving against her in a steady rhythm. She thought about springing out of the bed and running, but now her blouse was open, and the throbbing between her legs was draining her of all her energy. She felt empty.

It was Kaiba who sat up first. Tea didn't move. She didn't have the will to move. He turned on the light over the bed. She closed her eyes, but not before they made glancing eye contact. She couldn't pretend to be asleep.

Kaiba stood up. Tea couldn't tell if he was walking away, or standing by the bed and staring down at her. All she heard was the hum of the dirigible. She felt that once Kaiba left, time would start again. She had no idea what she would do after she left. She knew she had to get up; she had to get to Mai. She had to be there for Yugi and Joey. Right then, though, she couldn't imagine over facing the world again.

The smears of sperm on her belly had crusted over, except for a thick ribbon by her navel, which felt congealed. She imagined standing up, and the semen rolling down her belly, over her mons, and working its way inside of her. She imagined herself swelling with a lanky, steely eyed, cold-hearted child, and shuddered.

She heard the water burbling into the faucet. Kaiba was still there, and he was washing up. Tea's mind drifted back to the pen_. Nobody would have known you did it_, a voice inside her said. _Everybody would have thought it was Marik or Bakura. _

Warmth dripped onto her stomach before she felt a washcloth being rubbed in circles on her torso. She opened her eyes.

Kaiba wasn't looking at her. He looked at her stomach as he gently moved the washcloth over her, scrubbing himself off of her.

He went back to the sink and took another washcloth out of the cabinet. He ran the water over it, turning it in his hands, before wringing it out. His eyes were on the floor as he walked back to her. He sat next to her on the bed.

"You were hurt," he whispered. "I'm going to make you feel better."

In one quick, careful motion, her pulled her panties down slightly and pressed the washcloth to her crotch. It was cold. It took Tea's breath away. He held it there, gently lifting it away, and then placing it back on her skin. Tea trembled. Every time he turned the washcloth, the cold shocked her overheated flesh.

He took her wrist and put the washcloth in her hand, then guided her hand between her legs, holding the washcloth there with his hand on top of hers. "There," he said. "Just hold it there. "

The washcloth did help take the pain away. Tea felt the way she did after the first time in the closet. She felt drowsy, and her face felt numb. Everything felt numb except for the cold soothing the burning between her legs and the dryness of her throat. Nothing was real, except for that.

Kaiba sat back down next to her, placing a bottle of water on the bed stand. He put a hand behind her neck, and, with another washcloth, began to wipe her face. Tea didn't even know she was crying until she felt the difference between the damp coolness of the cloth and the flushing of her cheeks and the stinging of her eyes. Kaiba gently dabbed at her eyes and rubbed her cheeks. He held the cloth to first one side of her neck, and then the other.

It was too strange. It couldn't be happening. Kaiba couldn't be offering her the bottle of water, and lifting her slightly so she could hold it.

When she was finished, he took the bottle and put it on the bed stand again, then turned slowly back to her, his eyes downcast.

"You were hurt," his voice was quiet, but steady. He raised his eyes to hers. "That will never happen again."

Tea didn't look away. She found herself looking at a ghost, a stranger. As she gazed at him, she tried to figure out how to feel. She didn't feel anything, or maybe, she thought, she felt so much her brain was shorted out. His ashen skin was drawn tight over his cheekbones. His eyes were shiny, the whites pinkish, with the shooting vines of blood vessels seeming to sprout from the pockets of bruised skin under his eye sockets. She noticed that one of his lower eyelids was rapidly twitching, the tiny muscle tugging and jerking under the skin. The blue of his eyes was different. It was softer and deeper, the almost-violet of blueberries, a mournful, quiet color.

He put his hand on her cheek. His fingers curved around her face.

"I don't…I can't…" He looked down into his lap, his face cast in shadows. Tea began to wake up a little. Kaiba stumbling over his words? Kaiba not knowing what to say? This couldn't be reality.

He looked back at her. He placed his hand along the side of her neck, and his grip tightened. He leaned forward, staring intently into her eyes, before he spoke.

"This is making me insane," he said.

Tea believed him. She also, for a second, almost said she was sorry.

Kaiba leaned closer then, closer, closer, and pressed his lips against the skin below her cheekbone.

Tea held her breath. This was her first kiss.

A flash of lightning bathed the room in a weird lavender light, followed by a crash of thunder.

His mouth was tense, but soft. He didn't move, just held his lips to her skin.

She wanted to ask him why. She wanted to know what she did to make him do these things. She wanted to know why he was so violent one minute and tender the next. It would be easier if he were just full of volcanic lust. It would be less confusing.

He exhaled through his nose. His breath fluttered against Tea's temple, giving her chills. He smelled like lime-scented deodorant.

He pulled his lips away from her cheek and moved to place them on her forehead. Tea looked at his neck. She could see his artery pulse, moving as jerkily as his eyelid. His skin looked soft and pale as sweet dough. He arched over her like a dome, covering her.

He sat back up, replacing his lips with the washcloth. Then he stood up and walked away, closing the door behind him.

As Tea lay there, a washcloth on her forehead and another balled in her fist at her crotch, she felt rage boiling inside of her. She began to tremble with it. Tears ran silently down her cheeks and seemed to sizzle on her skin.

She flung herself upward, snatching the washcloth off her forehead. She tossed the washcloths, one in each hand, away from her. Twin slaps followed, one after the other, as they splattered onto the walls.

She stared at the door Kaiba had just exited and realized she was hyperventilating. Gasping and dizzy, her ribs aching from the force of her diaphragm heaving, she curled up on herself, her knees bending to her forehead and her forehead dropping to her knees. She pressed her fingertips into her temples, trying to get her breathing and her heartbeat under control.

She thought of his face when he looked down at her, and his timid lips. Did he have an evil inside him, a literal evil, like Marik or Bakura?

Her breath slowed but still hissing slightly, she stood up slowly on wobbly knees and began redressing, her fingers shaking and clumsy with anger. No, there was no Yami Kaiba. The cruel, sarcastic Kaiba; the groping, grabbing, hurting Kaiba; and the gentle, timid, remorseful Kaiba, were all the same. Kaiba was going insane.

She stopped from buttoning her blouse and stared out the window at the lurid purple clouds rolling and throwing lightning outside. Something big was happening. Yugi and his Yami couldn't help her now. They had too much to do that was too important.

It occurred to Tea that she might not need their help.

She thought of Kaiba looking down at her, looking sick and stumbling over his words. She thought about what he said.

_This is making me insane….This is making me insane…._

With a sinking feeling, she realized that he didn't mean "this." He meant to say "you." _You are making me insane_. She was driving Kaiba crazy. He had been _pleading _with her.

Did she really have that much power over Seto Kaiba? The thought overwhelmed her. She didn't know what she had down to deserve that much power over someone, if "deserve" was the right word. Being accused of having that much power frightened her. At the same time, however, she felt less afraid of Seto Kaiba.

If she could make him feel that way, if he _believed_ that she made him feel that way, than that meant she could make him stop.

Didn't it?

The thought was revolutionary, after these weeks, and after the encounters with Kaiba. It also made her angry. _He_ was accusing _her _of making _him_ crazy? He thought this was her fault?

The rage was acid pain. It made her jaw clench and her temples ache. Her stomach churned. Her breath quickened. She forced it to slow and deepen.

She couldn't focus on the injustice of it. She had to focus on the power, he had given her, no matter how misguided he had been. She had to believe she could do something with it.

Tea could hope. If nothing else, she could hope.

Fully dressed, cleaned, and feeling a tentative, budding sense of strength, she went back to Mai's bedside.


	28. Spot of Blood

All characters belong to Kazuki Takahashi. This is a disturbing chapter. If you are easily offended, you might want to wait until the next update.

Spot of Blood

There was a spot of blood on Kaiba's fingers as he went to clean up, a spot of blood he didn't see until he turned on the faucet.

Seeing that blood made him think of the feel of a burning match.

He focused on the warmth of the water rushing over his hands, the softness of the washcloth, the movement of the small muscles in his fingers, the slippery firmness of the soap. He took his time. He did not look up. He didn't want to see his face in the mirror. He just looked at his hands—the hands that had hurt her, the hands that would soothe her, the hands that had felt the most exquisite softness between her legs.

In fact, her skin had been even softer, all over, since she was naked. There was more for him to touch. That was part of what made him come too soon. It took him everything not to ejaculate when he touched her breast. It felt creamy, almost foamy, under his fingers. Her nipple was hard.

He remembered from his self-tutelage that if a girl's nipple was hard, it meant that she was either cold or aroused. Because her skin was so warm, it couldn't have been from cold. The way he touched her must have made her feel good, must have made her want it, even though she had said she wouldn't do anything before. And if her nipple was hard, that meant she was wet.

He slid his hand down her ribcage to her waist, careful not to spook her. Her panties were slippery under his fingertips, and it took him a few tries to find a place to work his finger under. There was fine, fine hair there, and then folds of softness, and then he felt a little bit of moisture.

He had looked up at her face and saw her mouth relax and open, her lips swell. When he stroked her there, he heard her suck in her breath, and release it with a little moan. He had felt more wetness on his fingertip. So, he pushed his finger into her.

He didn't think it would hurt her. She had been slick with juice, so that hadn't been the problem. The problem was that she was too tight. When he had pushed his finger in, it was like ramming into a brick wall of flesh. Her walls strangled his fingertip.

Again, she had locked him out.

After he left her, he went back to his room, closed the door, and sat back down. He rested his elbows on his knees and held his face in his hands. He sat like that for a long time. He had wanted to please her, to be a good lover, just like he was a good businessman, a good flinger of insults, and a good big brother.

He didn't know why it mattered.

At least one good thing had come from this—he had physical proof that she was a virgin. Oh, he had believed her when she had told him in the girl's bathroom (he knew she didn't have it in her to lie), but feeling that barrier and that tightness made him feel relieved. It was irrefutable evidence that she hadn't lied, and that she wasn't giving herself away.

In hindsight, the feel of her skin was evidence enough. Had Yugi, the mutt, and Taylor been sleeping with her, they would know how sweet and smooth she was, and would be constantly touching her. They had less self-control than he did, especially that dog, Wheeler. The thought made him nauseated.

He thought about the streaks of his semen on her stomach, how it was the color of pearls, and it made her skin look pinker in comparison. He thought about her soaking up his shame, and his lust, making him a little lighter, a little freer.

It hadn't worked.

Mrs. Prosser was right. He was sick.

It was cold in the orphanage, sometimes. Seto would sneak showers to warm up. He knew he would get in trouble, but so far, he hadn't been caught yet.

One day, it was especially cold. The metal knob of the shower burned the palm of his hand. The warm water felt scalding on his bluish skin. It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt.

Seto sighed and shuddered, a smile spreading across his face, and closed his eyes. The water was so friendly, and touched him so softly, that he made a decision right then and there—_If I ever get rich_, he thought, _I'm going to have a fountain in every room, and three hot-tubs: one for outside, one for my bedroom, and one for my living room, and two swimming pools: one outside and one inside. _

He spun around in the spray, his arms open. He wished he could hug that water. When it fell on the back of his neck and ran down his spine, it was like it was inside him, and embracing his heart.

There was a tingle between his legs, a tingle that was different than the rest of the little pinpricks on his skin. When he looked down, he saw that his "thing" was standing up. That 's what Mrs. Prosser called it, "your thing," and she would always say "thing" with a definite note of disgust.

It didn't seem disgusting to Seto. It was alarming, to see it all swollen, and he wondered if maybe he was sick, but a quick self-assessment told him that he didn't feel sick. It actually felt nice. It was a very warm feeling, and it made him smile even wider.

He touched the tip. It jumped, and the good feeling made him squirm. He tentatively grabbed it, and it pulsed in his hand.

He stroked it up and down, then grabbed it in his fist and pulled on it. He felt light-headed and giddy, in a good way, like he was flying. It felt better and better, and he was curious what would happen if he kept touching it.

The next second, he was wrenched into the air, his shoulder in a crushing, rending grip.

As he was pulled down the hall, all he could see was how dark it was, how the walls seemed to ooze darkness.

A door banged open with a sound like a shout and Seto was tossed to the ground. The rug under his fingers was blazing with the light from the fireplace, and Seto's shadow bled onto that light.

He didn't dare look up. His elbows could barely hold him up.

"Stand up," it was Mrs. Prosser. "I said stand up!"

Seto raised himself on shaky legs. His body wanted to fall to its knees, and a part of him wanted to beg. He would not let himself collapse. He would not beg. He would die standing.

No, he wouldn't die. He couldn't leave Mokuba alone here.

"You disgusting little worm," Mrs. Prosser rasped. "You sick, sick thing!"

The door banged open again. Mr. Prosser stepped in.

"What's wrong?" He demanded. "Why is that boy in here? And why is he naked?"

Mrs. Prosser turned to her son/husband, and pointed a stubby finger at Seto. "This dirty little brat was touching himself in our shower."

Mr. Prosser strode toward Seto. "Is that true, you filthy little bastard?"

Seto looked up into Mr. Prosser's beady little rat eyes and flushed face. _This is what it feels like to die of fright,_ he thought, but underneath the fear was disgust. _I will not let him kill me. I can't let myself be killed by something that ugly._

"Answer me!" Mr. Prosser yelled. His voice was shaking, like he wasn't used to yelling.

"There's no use asking him. If he debases his own body, you know he'll debase the truth, so just take my word for it." She walked into the shadows the fire couldn't penetrate, and pulled open a drawer in a heavy oak desk. "No matter. We'll teach him not to foul himself with impure thoughts." She stepped back into the firelight, her face dripping black shadow and washed orange with firelight. Her eyes were holes in her face. Seto couldn't look away to see what she had in her hand. Her face was too horrifying.

"Stand behind him and hold his arms." Mr. Prosser went around Seto and clasped his arms behind his back. Mrs. Prosser kneeled in front of Seto. She clasped his chin in her hand.

"We're going to burn those nasty thoughts and feelings out of you," she said. Her voice was soft and almost kind. "You'll thank us later."

She let go of Seto's face and lifted a book of matches in her left hand, holding his eyes with her own. With her right hand, she ripped a match free. In one smooth motion, she struck it, her arm snapping out to the side. She then quickly blew the match out and placed the red-hot head against the tip of Seto's penis.

Seto screamed.

"Imagine that a thousand, no, a million times worse, Seto, and you have a small idea of Hell!" Mrs. Prosser shouted above Seto's howling. She pulled out another match. "And that's where you'll go if you keep doing what I caught you doing, if you keep thinking nasty thoughts, if you give in to the call of the Split- Foot and the Serpent!"

"Please," Seto sobbed. "Please, I'm sorry." Oh, the sound of his own voice begging was horrible.

"Don't apologize to me," Mrs. Prosser had lit another match. She gazed at Seto over the flame. "Apologize to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!" She blew the match out and pressed the tip to another spot on Seto's genitals.

Seto tried to pray. He tried to think of the words to a prayer, but he couldn't think of anything except the burning. He couldn't say anything, anyway. All he could do was scream and cry.

"Not to mention the diseases that come from such filthy thoughts," Mrs. Prosser continued. "Lust leads to promiscuity. You think this is bad, wait until your manhood falls off because you bedded with a filthy whore." Again, she lit another match, blew it out, and pressed it to Seto's penis.

Seto's knees gave out, and he slumped, dangling from Mr. Prosser's arms. He wasn't sure if even Mokuba could keep him alive, let alone standing.

"There now, Seto," Mrs. Prosser said. She sounded slightly out of breath. "It's all over now. There was only three—one for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I trust you'll never disgrace your body again?"

Seto gulped, coughed, and choked on his own tears. He was naked and sobbing in front of the pig and her piglet. The pain was excruciating.

A scratchy blanket was wrapped around his shoulders. "Take him back to his room, then get him an ice pack and some ointment. We can't let him get an infection."

Seto went limp in Mr. Prosser's arms as he was scooped up and carried back to his room. He was placed on his bed, and Mr. Prosser left. Why wasn't the pain subsiding?

Mr. Prosser came back. "Here, boy," he said. His voice was very quiet, and he wouldn't look at Seto. "You just put that ice where it hurts, and then put some of this ointment on it." He twisted off the tube's cap, and squeezed out some opaque gel on his own index finger. "This is all you need. Here's the first dose." He scraped the gel on his finger onto the cap, and then placed the tube and the cap onto the dresser. Then he left, and Seto blacked out.

When Mokuba came up from playing downstairs, Seto was in his pajamas and under the covers, the ice pack pressed to the gel covered sores on his penis. He couldn't bear touching himself, not after that, but he had to. He didn't want an infection, or the hell Mrs. Prosser had promised. His penis still hurt, but the gel and the ice helped.

"What's wrong, Seto?" Mokuba asked. His voice was worried. "Mr. Prosser told me you were sick, and not to bother you. What's the matter? Did you throw up?" "No, Mokuba," Seto tried not to cry. "I just got a really, really bad headache. And I think I have a fever."

"Don't worry, Seto," Mokuba said. "I'll get you a Popsicle. That'll make you feel better."

When Mokuba came back with the Popsicle, Seto was surprised. Mr. Prosser must have felt bad. Mokuba stared at him, wanting his big brother to smile, but Seto could only thank him weakly and take a few licks of his Popsicle before giving the rest to Mokuba. He knew that Mokuba wanted a smile more than any Popsicle, but he couldn't give it to him.

That was the second time Seto truly hated himself.

He realized now that the hate never really ever went away. It would sit quietly for a while, biding its time, but it always came back.

Soon after the time with the matches, Gozabura Kaiba adopted him and Mokuba. The welts on Kaiba's penis, clustered together, turned blood red, but didn't become infected. Sometimes, when he looked closely, he could see tiny white spots—scars that were barely visible, but to him as bright as neon.

The little scars, all together, were the same size as the drop of Tea's blood that had spotted his finger.


	29. Tumbling:Questions

Téa now has an accent mark! This is another chapter that has to be braided into the canon story arc. These require finesse I am not sure I have. I feel a little creaky, honestly. My writing has been confined to applying for PhDs. The characters are the property of Kazuki Takahashi.

Tumbling: Questions

_Why does this keep happening? _Téa wondered as she fell, screaming, through a wormhole into a parallel dimension_. Seriously, how did I get here?_

After Kaiba, Téa did not go back to sleep. As she came back to the room, she kept her head down, scared to look the security guard in the eye and discover that he had heard what went on, or saw Kaiba leaving her room. She was grateful to see that the guard was sitting by Mai's bedside.

She stayed by Mai's side, careful not to lean too far forward, or flex her inner thighs. Not moving kept everything at a dull throb, while every movement of her legs felt like a rug burn.

She refused to think about Kaiba. He was unimportant, in the great scheme of things. This was the world that was at stake, a standoff between good and evil. He had taken way too much of her time from her friends and their needs.

Yet, she couldn't stop thinking about him. She couldn't decide how to handle this. If she went out of her way to avoid him, she was certain he would know why she was avoiding him. If she just acted like normal, she would have to interact with him at some point—she had never been afraid to speak to Kaiba normally. When was the last time she talked to Kaiba casually? Now that she thought about it, had she ever?

These were her weak moments, moments she dragged herself away from to try to concentrate on how she was going to help her friends? How could she help them?

It was a good question, and the churning of it in her mind was a distraction from the abrasion, even though the question hurt more. What skills did she have? She could play Duel Monsters, but not well enough. What good was she?

As the sun rose higher and higher, Téa sank lower and lower.

Téa heard two staff members outside the door. Though she had to strain to hear, she picked up that the dirigible had wandered off course inexplicably. _I can guess why_, Téa thought bitterly, even though, intellectually, she knew Kaiba wasn't flying or navigating the ship.

People were moving toward the dining area, though nobody seemed to have much of an appetite. Téa had the feeling that Joey and Tristan would prove her wrong, though. She didn't feel like she had the guts to find out.

She would force herself.

She winced her way out of her chair. Mai still slept. Téa wondered what she was seeing in the shadow realm, and what was happening to her there. It couldn't be worse than what was happening to Téa herself.

_Don't think like that_, she admonished herself. _It's like what you told Joey. Kaiba can't bring you down. You can't let him. _

At the door, hand on the knob, she took a deep breath. _It's okay to be scared_, she told herself. _You just can't show it. And if you're angry, channel that toward making a difference. No matter how small it is. _

As she opened the door and stepped through it, she bumped squarely into a narrow chest that smelled of dust and myrrh. It was too short to be Kaiba, and Téa found herself feeling strangely calm when she made eye contact with Yami Marik.

He grabbed her shoulder and leaned closer to her. The smell made Téa want to cough. The veins pulsing on his face were nauseating. Téa imagined them bursting and squirting black blood.

"Well, well, well," he chuckled, his voice a gravelly, electronic boom. "I wonder how the Pharoah will feel if he finds out his little Queen is letting herself be diddled by Seto Kaiba. He won't be pleased, not pleased at all."

Téa stared back at the bulging, graying whites of his eyes, the tiny pupils.

"You know what the old pharaohs used to do when they found their wives or concubines were making the beast with two backs with other men?" Marik -Thing licked his lips with a purple tongue. "They would throw them in a pit of scorpions and scarab beetles. Alive. So, if I were you, I wouldn't spread my legs. Or, at least, I wouldn't let news about my legs spread." Marik laughed hard then, impressed with his own wordplay.

Téa slapped him.

In the seconds that followed, when Marik stumbled, recovered and stared at her, Téa's first priority was not fleeing but washing her hand as soon as possible_. Wow. I didn't pop his veins_, she thought.

Marik grinned at her. "Fiesty wench," he laughed, vibrating the phlegm in his throat. "The puny Marik did well choosing you for a vessel."

"Yeah," Téa said, thinking of drops of blood splattering onto the tile of her bathroom floor. "Well, I'm not his vessel anymore, and both of you better not fuck with me."

She turned and walked away as Yami Marik howled with laugher, a maddening, croupy sound.

_So, this is me going crazy_, she thought, _I slap possessed people and say the word "fuck." _She remembered Kaiba in the bedroom, his accusation clothed as a confession. _Well, I handle insanity better than Kaiba, that's for sure. _

"You stupid, silly girl," Marik said behind her. She turned back. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, his face gloating. "You don't know anything, do you?"

"What don't I know?" Téa crossed her arms and tried to look nonchalant. "Enlighten me."

Marik smiled and shook his head. His lips seemed impossibly wide, splitting his face from ear to ear, reminding Téa of the split-mouth woman from the urban legends. The veins, the bulging eyes, the slash of a mouth displaying that squirming tongue—she wanted to look away, but yet couldn't stop staring.

"Oh, you don't know!" His eyelids lowered lazily. "I can never hope to enlighten you."

"Whatever. You're wasting my time," she continued walking down the hallway, stepping a little bit quicker with each stride, wanting to put distance between herself and the laughing Marik-Thing as soon as possible. She hated having her back to him—the spot between her shoulder blades tingled and flinched, as if someone were stroking their fingers bare millimeters away from her skin, as if she were anticipating a blow—but she was not going to turn around and expose her fear.

Was there something she didn't know? Were she and Joey still in danger of Marik's mind control? Something worse? Or was he messing with her?

What's more, why could she slap Marik, but not Kaiba?

While investigating the green grass and flowing streams of the strange place they found themselves where the dirigible docked, Téa felt curious, even comfortable. Her friends were around her, and her friends were her fortress against Kaiba, her cozy blanket that shielded her from the monsters in the closet.

The flowers looked real enough to smell. As she leaned in to see if they had a scent, she saw familiar legs and feet, and as she slowly panned up those legs to the face glaring down at her, she felt like she could swallow her own tongue. There was Kaiba, in front of her, staring at her, when she knew for a fact he was standing behind her, at least 40 feet away.

This was a nightmare. She would wake up from this. Or she was lying in a hospital bed next to Mai, and this was her Shadow Realm.

She would test this. She would talk. Say anything. If she could talk, it wasn't a nightmare, and if her friends responded, that meant that they were there with her, and she wasn't in the Shadow Realm. Whatever happened, she would not take her eyes off this Kaiba until she was sure.

"Um, Kaiba," she said. Her voice sounded normal, if cracking. "Did you change your clothes really fast or something?" She scooted back. This was another good sign. She could move.

"Relax," Kaiba said behind her. His tone was mildly annoyed. "It's an avatar I created."

There was more conversation after that, but Téa had to admit she didn't really care. All that mattered to her was that her friends were still with her, and she could talk and move away from anything that might harm her. Of course, this all had to do with Kaiba, same as always. She wasn't surprised at that, though it did kind of amuse her that five grown men who were angry that they had been fired orchestrated all of this. After all she and her friends had been through, this seemed kind of banal, not to mention immature.

Then the ground gave way, and she bruised her butt on the rocky ground of a canyon, dust billowing up into her sinuses. Yugi wasn't there to help her up, and she almost broke her ankle wandering through the dust and stones. She decided that if she lived, she would incinerate the shitty shoes she was wearing.

Then the Hitotsu-Me giants came, and Téa ran until she was knocked unconscious.


	30. Mirror Image

A Mirror Image

I'm not going to exposit the entire Noa Arc. I hope nobody minds. I'm sure Kazuki Takahashi, who owns these characters, doesn't.

Seto's mind had been filled with Mokuba.

He hated to admit he was that attached to anyone, but Mokuba was different. He would be lost without his little brother, and he didn't care who knew it. He was willing to jump off a cliff, or a castle turret, for Mokuba. He would light himself on fire for his little brother. The Prossers put them through Hell, then Pegasus, and now Noah was too. But that didn't matter. He would go through Dante's infernal Nine Circles nine times over if it meant Mokuba's suffering would be lessened for a minute.

Their last conversation haunted him. At the blimp, a red-haired girl had begged him to take Bakura and Mai to a hospital. For a few moments, he had just stared at her. He thought he should know who she was, but it just wasn't coming to him. She had one of those hippie names-Peace, Freedom, Butterfly? She was staring at him with pleading eyes, and so was Mokuba.

"Fine," he said.

Later, Mokuba had approached him.

"Hey, big brother," he leaned against the wall, trying to seem cool. "Listen, I just wanted to tell you, thanks for getting Bakura help. I think everyone's happier now. "

"Don't mention it, Mokuba. Though I can't get excited about them being happy. It doesn't take much to please them." Kaiba cut his deck.

"You really made Joey's sister happy," Mokuba continued. "I think she likes you. How about you take her, and I'll take Téa?"

At Gardner's name, Kaiba jerked his head up to stare at his brother.

"What? Téa's hot. And I don't think she's dating Yugi, though I think she wants to, which sucks, because I'm more of a man than he is. My dick's probably bigger, too." He looked sideways at Kaiba and winked. "At least, it is around Téa."

In two seconds Kaiba had his brother pinned to the wall, his shoulders in a white- knuckle grip.

"Jesus! Seto! What the hell!" Mokuba squirmed in his grip.

Kaiba was surprised he felt so angry. He loosened his grip on Mokuba.

"God, Seto! What's wrong with you?" Mokuba glared up at Kaiba, his eyes wide and wet. The strain of keeping up a tough demeanor was shown by the tiny, almost imperceptible pout of his bottom lip. "God, if you want her so bad for yourself, just say so!"

"I don't want her!" Kaiba was surprised at how booming his voice was. Mokuba eyes widened and he pressed himself further into the wall. Even though he towered over his brother, Mokuba's actions made Kaiba feel small and weak. "Mokuba, I thought I taught you better than that. To say such disrespectful things about the girl who saved your life is disgusting and completely beneath you."

Mokuba's eyes lowered. "I'm sorry, Seto." He sighed. "I didn't mean it. I was just joking."

"It's not funny." Kaiba let go of Mokuba, who backed away and rubbed his biceps. "But I do admit I overreacted. "

Mokuba looked genuinely shocked. His brother admitting a mistake? But then he looked away, scowling. "No shit," he muttered. Kaiba still caught this, even though Mokuba was whispering into the wall.

"Look, Mokuba, I…" Mokuba turned back from the wall, interrupting Kaiba.

"But Seto…I really do like her, though. She saved my life. She's pretty and smart and nice and I…"

"She's one of Yugi's friends, and Yugi is my rival," Kaiba braked his brother's train of thought. "Have a healthy respect for her, but don't entertain any romantic notions. In fact, I helped save her and her friends' lives, so, in my point of view, we're even. You don't owe her a thing."

"Okay, Seto." Mokuba's voice was hesitant. Kaiba knew he did not succeed in wiping Téa Gardner from his younger brother's mind. Mokuba would never forget Téa Gardner, and he would keep daydreaming about her. _That makes two of us, _he thought to himself_. Just what we need. _

"And Seto, you don't even have to tell me about Joey's sister. I would never go for her, and I know you wouldn't either. I was seriously just kidding." Mokuba was still rubbing his biceps. Kaiba wished he would stop.

"What sister?"

Mokuba cocked an eyebrow. "Serenity?" At Seto's silence, he cocked the other eyebrow. "The redhead? The one who wanted you to get medical care for Bakura?"

"Oh, her," Kaiba mused on all the interactions he had seen between Wheeler and the redhead. "I thought she was his girlfriend."

That was the last real conversation he had had with his brother before Mokuba had been taken from him. As he watched Wheeler and (Summer? Season? No, Serenity. That was it.) Serenity cling to each other, he didn't feel the revulsion he knew he would normally be feeling. Instead, he felt envy.

He didn't have time for this. He didn't know where the others had been, and he didn't care. He was leaving.

Gardner stopped him.

She stepped in front of him as if she truly believed she could stop him, as if she believed they were equally matched in strength and determination. She looked him right in the eye, her arms thrown wide, exposing her heart to his gaze.

He stared back at her, into her blue eyes, and her open face, and saw that however she had changed from what happened last night, she was not broken, and she was not afraid. He couldn't take his eyes off of her.

Then he realized what she was doing. Even after everything, she still cared about Mokuba. She wanted to help him find Mokuba. She wanted to help him, the man who hurt her, after all that had happened.

He was scared she might actually step forward and hug him. He wanted Mokuba back so badly, and he realized that he couldn't cry. He wanted to cry, but he couldn't, not by himself. If she held him, though, he could let go. He was tired, so very tired, and she was offering to take some of his burden.

He saw himself stepping forward into her arms, wrapping himself around her, and just…standing there for a while.

It was that wish that made him unable to look her in the eye anymore. He couldn't recognize himself in that fantasy, and it frightened him. He turned away from her wide eyes and open arms.

Now, here was Mokuba, standing in front of him in the same pose, only not to keep him in, but to push him away. The parallels were not lost on him, even through this pain. He hadn't forgotten his last conversation with Mokuba, either, which had all come down to Téa Gardner.

His interactions with both the girl and his brother kaleidoscoped around him. He had blamed Mokuba for his own stupid mistake, and in the past twenty- four hours had thrown him into a wall. He had made Gardner bleed, and, maybe worse, had forced her to see the worst he could ever be.

_I am such a shit_, he thought dispassionately. _I hate myself_.

Noah smirked at him. He thought Yugi may be calling his name, and that made him feel the rock under his feet, the air on his skin, and the smooth cards in his hand. It made him see the emptiness in Mokuba's eyes, the red tint to the larkspur irises.

_Fuck_, he thought. _I still can't lose to this guy_. _I refuse to_.

Those words were comfortable in his mind, and he recognized himself. His cards were in his hand. The Blue-Eyes (the Angel, the Goddess) was in his hands.

He was Seto Kaiba. He could hate himself, but he couldn't—wouldn't—lose.


	31. A Battle Won, a War's Outcome Cloudy

Again, I am not going to exposit the entire Noa arc. I'm just going to look at the important Azureshipping moments This one is from episode 3-14, "Merger of the Big Five, Pt. 1." I did my research! Takahashi will own these characters forever and always.

A request: I have written another fanfic called "Invisible Ink." It is in my list of stories on my profile. Please read it and review. You might like it (hopefully), but please read the Author's Note in the first chapter.

A Battle Won, a War's Outcome Cloudy

Why didn't she just let him go, like Joey had suggested?

Why didn't she just let him walk away?

Téa knew why, though she felt that her reason wouldn't make sense to anyone else. She liked Mokuba. He had been nothing but caring and concerned about her when they were in the warehouse, and, if she could help rescue him, she was going to. She knew Kaiba could not rescue Mokuba by himself. He, by his own admission, was going insane.

It was bizarre, knowing Kaiba's weakness. She understood that this made her his worst enemy. He had felt her from inside, and she had seen into him. It made her skin crawl and tingle, thinking about what had transpired last night. A part of her refused to believe it had happened, like she had seen a ghost or a murder. Her stomach churned. She forced herself to do the opposite of what she wanted to do, which was to stay away from him and his eyes, out of his arms' reach, and curl up small. She felt her heart beating, the bareness of her arms, and the softness of her belly, yet she was not going to look away.

"What's the problem?" His voice was hoarse and sinister. His eyes were that same cool, sharp blue. There was a white corona shining starkly inside each pupil. His lower lip twitched against his upper lip.

"You're the problem. In case you haven't noticed, we're stuck here because of you."

_Yeah, you are the fucking problem, Kaiba. And your tough guy act is shit. _

It felt good to think those words, even if she would never say them out loud. That would make people wonder, and she had to stay normal. What happened with her and Kaiba was too much; it was too big; it was too weird. Her friends were already dealing with their own too muches, too bigs, and too weirds. She would protect them from hers.

Kaiba stepped toward her, raising his arm.

Téa's mouth dried out at the sight of his black shirted chest moving toward her, but when he moved around her, she ran back in front of him.

"Don't you see we can help you get Mokuba back? He's our friend, too." She knew he didn't see, just as he didn't see that what he had been doing to her was wrong, yet she meant everything she said. Mokuba was their friend, or at least hers.

Her exhaustion caught up with her and she dropped her arms.

He dropped his head and looked away.

The great Seto Kaiba couldn't keep eye contact with her.

Surprisingly, she had won the battle. Her point had been proved. She didn't have the time or the energy to worry about the repercussions of this. She looked up at the false Tristan towering on a steppe. The smile and the eyes of the false Tristan were the worst. To see that jagged grin and grasping, cunning eyes juxtaposed with the features of one of her best friends jarred Téa, choked her. The caramel color of his eyes had changed into poisonous sulfur.

In a toy monkey's body, the real Tristan was as good as dead. She would mourn seeing his smile, the bright, soft golden rings of his eyes, and his easy loping stride. Tristan's body, his strength and agility, was his pride. Thinking about him losing that to reside in a piece of 12 inch molded plastic, powered by a microchip, was as depressing as thinking of him paralyzed or with an amputation. What made it worse was that it was stolen. Since Yugi had made friends with Tristan, Tristan had only used his strength to help people. He had become a gentle giant. Now, what would Tristan's body be used for?

Téa knew Tristan felt violated, and she knew what violation felt like. Her commiseration with him was secret and shameful.

She hoped Tristan got through this intact, with his body, mind and soul whole and united.

She wondered if she would be able to.


	32. Benefactor

I do not own these characters. Kazuki Takahashi does.

Reviews mean a LOT to me. They are very helpful, so, please read and review. Also, you might want to mosey over to "Invisible Ink," my other fanfic. I would be quite grateful.

Benefactor

Atem was gone.

It was the opposite of how things should be. Once someone or something was named, Téa expected it to stick around for a while. Naming made someone or something permanent. Once Atem had his name, he left.

It wasn't right.

She still loved Yugi. If anything, they spent more time together. They only talked about Atem in those quiet moments true friends have, after the conversation has entered a comfortable lull. They held hands a lot, now. Yugi's hand was small and soft in hers. It felt nice, it felt right, but the very rightness of it made Téa's eyes prickle, along with sunsets, the color violet, or hearing a voice that was deep and rich and warm.

They were walking by the pier one day when Yugi stopped and looked up at her.

"Téa," he said, "It's okay."

"What's okay?"

"That you don't feel the same way about me."

Téa hated herself in that moment.

"Téa," Yugi said, reaching for her face.

Téa started to cry.

"Oh, Téa," Yugi said. His eyes were large and shining. "This is enough for me. This is more than enough."

"Yugi," Téa sobbed softly.

"I've always pictured just being near you, like this. Knowing everything about you, protecting you," he stroked her hair. It was getting longer, almost between her shoulders. She had made the decision to grow it out after seeing Teana's hair. It was probably a way to keep Atem close. She knew this. "Seeing you smile, Téa, brings me so much joy. It always has. Hearing you laugh. Being your friend is the greatest honor."

"Oh, God, Yugi," Téa hugged him then. He hugged her back.

"Of course, if you wanted to get married, we could. In fact, we could get married right now. My mom will be a witness. You know she loves you."

"I love her too," Téa smiled at Yugi. She wanted to give him that. "I guess we could get married now. I'm not going to Anna Pavlova."

Yugi looked at her in surprise and dismay. "But Téa, you've already been accepted!"

"Yeah, but I didn't get the scholarship. Can't go without money, Yugi."

"Oh, Téa—"

"It's okay!" Téa couldn't talk about this right now. Some days, she was sure she was going to fall apart. First Atem, now her dream had gone. "There's always next year!"

She had to keep smiling. Yugi wanted that smile. It was the least she could give him. Right now, it was the most she could give him.

Yugi, as always, understood. Tristan and Joey would have ranted and railed at The Anna Pavlova Academy of Dance, at how stingy it was, and didn't those people know talent when they saw it, but Yugi knew when to just take her hand and lead her down the pier.

A week later, a month before the summer sessions at the Academy started, Téa's cell phone rang. The phone number wasn't one she recognized, but the area code was for where Anna Pavlova was located.

Téa didn't understand. She had already been rejected for the scholarship. Why were they contacting her? Was it a phone call of condolence? A request for a donation?

She decided it might be satisfying to hang up on them if it was anything like that. She knew if she didn't answer, it would go to her voice mail, and that somehow seemed more depressing than hearing it first hand. She thought about her mother. Her mother had been heartbroken when Téa didn't get the scholarship. If she wasn't at work, she would tell Téa that she shouldn't be so pessimistic, and that this could be the phone call that told her that they changed their minds and decided to give her the scholarship, anyway.

Fat chance.

She pushed the "answer" button on her phone.

"Hello?"

"Hi! Téa?"

This was strange. Sheila Ruth Carver was the woman who interviewed Téa and gave her a tour of the Academy when she visited. Why was she calling?

"Yes?"

"This is Sheila, from the Anna Pavlova Academy of Dance. Téa, I know you were disappointed about the scholarship."

_Here we go_, Téa thought. "It's okay, Ms. Carver. I'm sure that there's only so many…"

"But you don't need one."

"What?"

"Ms. Téa Gardner, we are pleased to inform you that your tuition has been paid. "

"What?"

"Your tuition has been paid, in full. We received the check today. I just want to tell you, Téa, how genuinely happy I am. Your video audition and demonstration were excellent, and you were delightful to get to know during the tour."

"Thank you." Téa had to sit on the floor. "Who paid it?"

"Someone who wanted to remain anonymous, but I assure you, it's legitimate. The check cleared."

_Oh, Jesus_.

"Thank you, Ms. Carver. Thank you very much."

"Can we expect to see you, Téa? "

Téa didn't know what to say. She honestly didn't know what to do. She had to answer as soon as possible. This was her dream. She couldn't bear to snatch it away from herself.

But she knew who had paid that tuition. She just didn't know why.

"I need to discuss this with my parents first, Ms. Carver. It'll be a shock to them. A happy shock, of course, but, you know."

"Of course! Can you call me back by tomorrow afternoon?"

"Yes. Maybe even before then, actually."

"Okay, I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Talk to you soon!"

"Goodbye."

Téa hung up and let her head fall back, staring up at the ceiling. In the months since the airship and the virtual world, since going into ancient Egypt, Kaiba hadn't touched her, hadn't spoken to her, hadn't even looked at her. He had gone back to being his old self—in control and cold.

She knew he had been in pain. He had seemed in love with Kisara, the girl who became the Blue Eyes. She didn't blame him. She was so beautiful, every other girl would seem horrifically ordinary in comparison. They had been so in love, too, Set and Kisara.

She was hurting though, too, and it was partly because of him. He had frightened her, cornered her, exposed her, and made her bleed. She didn't know what she wanted from him. Sometimes, she thought she wanted an apology. Minutes later, she was happy he was staying away. Later that same day, she wanted to tear him to pieces, or tear herself into pieces, because if he had seen her as the type of person he could treat like that, maybe she was worthless. After all, Seto Kaiba wasn't the only one. There was the gym teacher. There was Bandit Keith.

Sometimes, she would cry—in the shower, in her bed.

The worst part was that she couldn't tell anyone about this. She couldn't even articulate why she felt this way, why she felt this need to carry it all to her grave, but she did.

After she didn't get her scholarship, she had felt so empty. It didn't matter that she had been accepted. Something had seen fit to keep her from her dream, just as fate had seen fit to keep her from Atem—and from loving Yugi the way he deserved to be loved. This was the same fate that kept tossing her into the path— and hands—of those men.

Now, Seto Kaiba had paid her way into The Anna Pavlova Academy of Dance.

Was it because he wanted something from her? Was he sorry? Those were the only two reasons she could think of.

She mulled the two reasons over. If he wanted something from her, he would have made it perfectly clear that it was he who was paying her way. She would have found out from the man himself, not from Sheila Carver. That reason didn't sit right in her mind. It poked at odd angles and didn't fit.

This being his apology felt a little better. It made more sense, not that that was saying much. Now she just had to decide what to do with it. It occurred to her that if she refused to go to Anna Pavlova, he might never know, and probably wouldn't care. He probably saw his conscience as being clear; he had written the check and washed his hands of it.

If that were true, he had to have been thinking of her. Otherwise, he never would have written the check.

Téa grasped her hair in her fists. She wished she had never met Seto Kaiba. She wished he had never been born, and she wasn't rocking back and forth on her kitchen floor, torn between aborting her own dream and becoming a prostitute for it.

Anna Pavlova was an hour's train ride away. Maybe this was her way out. She might go insane in Domino, with the loss of Atem, with the guilt over Yugi. If she went to the Academy, would she be able to dance without seeing Seto Kaiba, or worse, feeling his phantom hands on her, and hearing his ghostly moans? Would she feel like she was contaminating the art she loved? What would be worse: feeling like a prostitute, or feeling the longing and regret not going would give her?

She didn't know the answer, but she did know that dance was healing. She had been able to dance herself out of a bad mood, from fear and pain and anger, more times than she could count. Dance had been her anchor and her solace these past months.

Not going would feel worse.

She picked up the phone and called Sheila Carver back.


	33. From the Ashes, a Spark

Yu-gi-oh and its characters belong to Kazuki Takahashi. Does anyone else wonder how he feels about all this fanfiction?

This is probably the cheesiest chapter I've written, but Yu-gi-oh can be a cheesy show, and I mean in a good way.

Please read and review. And please check out "Invisible Ink," a new story I wouldn't mind having some feedback on. Thank you.

From the Ashes, a Spark

Kaiba spent the flight home from Egypt staring out the window of the jet. The black and indigo of the ocean seemed as frozen as the tawny sands of the desert. City lights blinked tiny all those miles down. The sky itself changed topography, with the clouds forming tundras and plowed fields, and sometimes there were no clouds at all, so the land stood bare below him. He wondered what it would feel like to fall through the clouds, and whether they were as cool and soft as they looked. He saw her face in every other cloud. He saw it in the surface of the ocean. He realized that he believed in destiny. He told it to go fuck itself.

As soon as the house staff had cleared out of the mansion's foyer, he wrapped his arms around Mokuba. Mokuba didn't say anything, and didn't move, letting Kaiba be the first to let go.

When Kaiba finally let go, Mokuba patted him on the arm and went to his own room. Kaiba went to his secret study.

The pencil drawing of Kisara was still on the desk, propped up by the crystal blue paperweight. His Blue Eyes, his goddess, was waiting for him. He sat in front of her picture.

Kaiba felt a little jerk in his chest, and then felt a pop, like a tiny seam bursting.

Seconds later, he was on his hands and knees.

He was inside his body, but his body was a diving bell, and he was inside it and yet apart from it. He heard his own sobs and gasps. He felt howls and screams tear at the membrane of his throat, and the swelling in his sinuses. He saw the blurring sloughs of his tears, and yet, he felt brain dead. He didn't even try to stop himself from crying, or to get himself off the ground. He didn't care enough.

He found himself on his belly, hiccupping. Every so often he would shudder out a few more tears, but it was mostly over. As he quieted, he realized that he had grabbed the pencil drawing of the Blue Eyes goddess

(O Kisara)

and it had fallen to the floor with him. It lay under his fingers.

Kisara. The syllables of her name, whether taken apart or woven together like the steps of a dance, were the lines of an exquisite hymn. The first syllable was a key that unlocked all doors, the alpha, and then blended with the second to kiss the ear in a breath of lilac and lotus perfume, and then the second syllable melted into the third and glowed silver, like the moon. The name was an oasis to him from the numbness that his mind used to cloak his agony.

He pulled himself up into his chair and propped his head up on his elbow, his fingers pressing into one eyelid while the other stared at the pencil drawing he held. It was such a pathetic facsimile, and now he would never see the real girl again. He would never get to kiss her, and see if she tasted like green apples and spearmint, like he suspected. He would never get to hold her tiny, silken hand, or make love to her. He would never be inside her, which would have been a sensation untouchable by language. He had failed to protect her, the beauty he had been entrusted with, and now, he could only pull her card from his deck, and put it in attack or defense mode. That was his punishment.

Another jerk, another pop, this time in his shoulders.

A few minutes later, he looked at the ransacked room. Pencils were snapped in two and pens were bent double. A few paper shreds were still making their graceful descent to the floor after being ravaged. The paperweight that had propped up the drawing of Kisara was now lodged into the wall. It stared at him disapprovingly.

Kaiba felt woozy and moved to the wall, letting it support his slide down to the floor. His whole face felt raw.

_Is this how I'm going to feel for the rest of my life?_

He asked this question of the universe, but didn't get a response. He knew the answer, anyway. And he knew he couldn't take it.

He thought back on his mother and father, so long ago. He didn't even get a chance to know them enough so he could grieve them properly, to stockpile more memories, sharper memories, next to those soft focus shots of dancing on feet or leaning on a belly. Then there were the Prossers, and their diapers and their matches. Then destiny handed him to Gozaboru, with his sly coldness and spittle launching barks, and the tutors with the riding crops. Then destiny gave him a gift, something that would make a century in hell be worthwhile, only to snatch it away.

Leaving a playing card as a consolation prize.

He scanned the secret study. He could see himself now. There was a streak of snot on his upper lip, but over that his blue eyes were clear, bright, and determined, and only a little pink. His lip were pressed together cool determination.

He remembered where it was. He stood up and shambled over to the desk, where he lowered himself into the chair. He fiddled under the desk, and the secret drawer popped open. He pulled out the Colt .45.

Something in him thought of Mokuba, and he knew that he was done for when that couldn't even make pulling the trigger less attractive. Not even Mokuba could save him now. It dismayed him, and made him even more certain in his decision, the most impulsive one of his life.

His mother smiled at him from her picture. _It's okay, sweetie_, he read in the smile, _you can rest now. You can let it all go. _

He knew he was just seeing what he wanted to see. If his mother's soul was out there, and now he knew it was, after all he had been through, she would probably hate him. That was okay. He hated himself. It was what he deserved.

He lifted the gun to his temple, hesitated, brought it near his mouth, then his forehead, and then back to his temple. No, too messy. He didn't want Mokuba's last image of his face to be splintered bone and pulpy flesh. He put it back to his mouth.

He felt squeamish. The thought of the cold metal on his tongue and teeth made him shiver. The taste would be like tinfoil, and the cold would make the nerves in his teeth throb.

_My God_, he thought_, Mokuba won't stop you from blowing your brains out but the thought of your teeth being achy does. What is wrong with you? _

Mokuba. He had to make sure Mokuba knew how much he loved him, even to the end. He grabbed the card around his neck. It would be held tight in his fist. The chain was tangled in his shirt buttons, and he had to look down to straighten it out. He picked up the gun again.

He realized he might not be found. He could be decomposing for months before somebody stumbled upon the secret study, if anyone ever did. He decided to write a note and put it on his bedroom door. He groped for the pen and paper with one hand, Colt clutched in the other.

His fingertips grazed Téa's photograph.

The drawing of Kisara had settled next to Téa's picture so it was leaning towards it. Téa appeared to be looking joyfully at Kisara, and the drawing was positioned so Kisara appeared to be leaning over Téa. Kisara looked solemnly at Kaiba.

Kaiba blinked.

He had put down the Colt without even registering the action.

_How could you doubt that you are worthy? _He heard a voice say_. How could you doubt that I will always love you? _

He felt something wrapping around him then, something warm and soft.

"You don't know," he whispered. "You don't know what I've done. You don't know what I've been through."

_You can make it right_, the sweet, soft song of a voice said. _It will be all right. Do you trust me? _

It would have been sacrilege to say otherwise.

_Then stay alive for me, _she said._ Be happy for me. I am in your heart, and your joy is mine. I beg of you, do not take life away from us. _

Kaiba cried again. This time he was quiet, and this time the tears did not sting.

"Forgive me," he whispered.

_I have nothing to forgive. _

"She does." Here his breath hitched.

_Then let her forgive you. _

He thought about this. He breathed deeply. There was something steely in the voice now. It was that hidden strength. She was going to keep protecting and guiding him.

_ Give her that choice. _

He gazed at Téa's picture. Her face was doing something to him, something deep inside. It was the same feeling he felt when he first held her so tightly in the closet after he came, when he held her hand in the limo, and when he kissed her on the blimp. It was a curious, tender feeling; it almost hurt, but he couldn't stop cupping it in his mind.

He listened for the voice. It didn't speak, but he still felt that sense of warmth around him. Then it became quite clear what he had to do.

He looked at the gun. If this didn't work, it would always be there. He would try this one last thing.

The idea he had was a little seed, but if it bloomed, it would be so lovely.

If it withered, the gun would be waiting.


	34. A Phantom's Gaze

In this chapter, the point of view is split between Téa and Kaiba. Yu-gi-oh is the property of Kazuki Takahashi. Please read and review. And check out "Invisible Ink."

A Phantom's Gaze

When he overheard Yugi tell Wheeler and Taylor that Téa wouldn't be going to the Academy, after all, Kaiba almost laughed out loud, and had to cover his mouth to hide his grin. The universe had handed him an opportunity.

It was just before school let out, and Téa was in a different History class. Yugi was telling about how Téa didn't get the scholarship in a sad, sad voice. As Wheeler and Taylor raged against the unfairness of it all, and Wheeler talked about heading down to the academy to "crack some skulls," and Yugi tried to look at the bright side by stating that at least Téa would get to hang out with them, Kaiba sat there and grinned for the first time in weeks. It was a wonderful plan, absolutely wonderful.

He had Téa all paid off by that afternoon. He'd even thrown in a sizable donation to the Academy, just to sweeten the deal.

He was quite pleased with himself.

When Téa first came to the Academy, Kaiba intruded on her mind quite frequently. The dancers slept in suites, so she could wake up in the middle of the night to pace her dorm room without waking her suitemates.

In the shower, she would think about him and scrub herself so hard it hurt.

The worst was when a memory of him would ambush her when she was dancing. She would stand in the corner, waiting for her turn to move across the room, when thoughts of him would make her teeth grind and her fists clench. Two instructors took her aside to tell her that they noticed she seemed tense. They recommended the yoga classes to help her ease her stress.

One night, in the shower, she dug her nails deep into the skin of her forearm, raking the flesh and leaving angry looking lines. She felt distant, impassive. It frightened her.

Later that week, when the other dancers were in bed and she couldn't sleep in the suite bedroom that felt like a capsule, she picked up a paper clip, straightened it, and jammed the sharp end into her thigh, dragging it across the skin. The pain made her gasp, and relief seemed to rush in as the blood rushed out.

It wasn't dangerous. There was only a slight puncture wound in the morning, but Téa was terrified. She had felt so separate from herself when she had done it. She remembered having the insane thought that it would help her sleep.

She began to take the yoga classes, and threw herself into dancing and making new friends, two things that were rather easy for her. She avoided sharp objects. The sight of the little puncture wound filled her with shame.

Soon, the girls would have their first dance recital. This was another thing to take her mind off of Kaiba, who seemed to be fading away faster and faster. Her parents were bringing her friends down to see it. She fell asleep every night physically exhausted from the exertion.

She did exactly what she did after the first time in the closet, when she worked manically on cleaning the house and preparing Joey's gift, only now she danced. It had seemed to help, after the first time in the closet. In fact, it had made what happened become nebulous and otherworldly, so much so she could pretend it never happened. It would have helped her pretend forever, if Kaiba hadn't done it again.

She was certain this approach would work this time. She would never see Kaiba again. He had sent her here, and now it was done. She was going to move on with her life. Kaiba would never show up again.

Kaiba awaited the dance recital at the Academy with anticipation and trepidation. He had his secretary buy his ticket a month in advance.

He had never seen Téa dance before, even though she was rather famous throughout the school for her abilities. He felt compelled to watch her.

He flew the helicopter the night of the recital, and then was picked up by a private car, an inconspicuous Jetta. He had showered, brushed his teeth, put on cologne. He noticed his facial hair was growing ever-so-slightly thicker.

He was seated before everyone else, in a private box. He looked down at the crowd. He saw Yugi Moto come in—he could recognize him anywhere—and looked away. If Yugi was there, that meant Wheeler was there, and he didn't want his evening spoiled.

The lights went down. The dance began.

Téa might as well have been alone on the stage. He watched her every move, memorizing the lines of her body, observing the muscles bunch and elongate, and the tempo of feet and arms. He spent minutes just following the sweeps of her wrists with his eyes. He studied the way the light fell on her neck with intensity. Her hair had gotten longer, and watching the strands swing and shine filled him with an almost gleeful feeling.

He was disappointed when the performance was over. He sat in his box and watched as the crowd left. He looked down and saw Yugi hadn't left yet, and he was indeed with Wheeler and Taylor. What surprised him was that Mai Valentine was there too, and Wheeler's sister—what was her name? Liberty? Dakota?—and Bakura. Bakura looked healthy and happy, and more relaxed than Kaiba had ever seen him. He leaned against the lip of the stage with an easy smile that never left his face. He even looked less thin, like there was no room in his body for some muscle. Yugi was holding a dozen apricot roses spotted with daisies.

Along with the group were a man and a woman who looked to be in their mid-forties. They both had brown hair, and Kaiba guessed that they were Téa's parents. He was torn between curiosity and wanting to hide.

When Téa herself appeared, changed into a yellow sundress, everyone in the party ran to give congratulations, and she hugged each one in turn, even Bakura, who looked down bashfully. She hugged Yugi the longest, her eyes closed.

When Yugi let go, she opened her eyes to move onto Mai, and she happened to look up at the box. Her eyes met with Kaiba's.

Her smile vanished. Her eyes widened. From the movement of her chest, Kaiba could see her breath caught.

Mai noticed. She whipped around to follow Téa's line of sight. Kaiba crouched down just in time.

He didn't leave for another ten minutes, making sure they weren't hanging out in the lobby. He was filled with shame at himself. Why was he so afraid of them? He could destroy them, just like he destroyed the orphanage.

He shouldn't think such thoughts. They would disappoint Kisara. He was sure Kisara would approve of his decision not to cause a scene. There was a time and place for everything, he told himself.

He flew home, pondering his next move.

He had not been there. _ He had NOT been there. _

Téa told herself that over and over as she sat down to dinner with her parents and friends. He had been a phantom, a figment of her imagination. If Kaiba had really been there, he wouldn't have ducked out of sight. He would have stayed to throw insults at her friends, and maybe even her mom and dad.

"You looked like you saw a ghost, kid," Mai said to her in the bathroom at the restaurant. She applied lipstick to her bottom lip before continuing. "Your face went absolutely white."

"Oh, I thought I saw a guy up in the balcony. It just startled me, that's all," Téa said. She nudged Mai's shoulder. "Were you and Joey holding hands?"

"Yes, they were!" Serenity clapped her hands. "They started going out last weekend!"

In jumping up and down and hugging her friends with joy, Téa found it even easier to believe Kaiba had been just a hallucination.

She had to. She would go insane if she didn't.


	35. An Old Fashioned Call

Yu-gi-oh is the property of Kazuki Takahashi. I love reviews. I love feedback. Please give me some! And check out "Invisible Ink" for my undying gratitude!

An Old-Fashioned Call

Seto Kaiba sat still and straight in the back seat of the limo, his hands folded on his briefcase. He stared straight ahead at the smoked window that separated the passengers from the driver. He felt like there was nothing, really, for him to think about. He felt the way he did when he threw the card to save Téa. He was a shark—focused on his goal, with no thoughts of how or what.

When the limo pulled up at Téa's apartment complex, he smoothly exited and strode up the walkway. He skimmed the directory for Gardner and keyed in the number.

The woman who answered had a merry and strong voice, with no shrill bite. "Hello, Gardners! Who's there?"

"My name is Kaiba," he responded. "I'm in your daughter's class." It occurred to him that he had ejaculated on this woman's daughter's belly. He had pushed his finger inside this woman's child. He felt a wrench in his gut that was disturbingly similar to what he felt on that hot day with Mrs. Prosser's hose.

_Did she tell? _

"Kaiba?" The woman asked. "As in Seto Kaiba?" The woman's voice pitched higher.

"Yes. My name is Seto Kaiba."

"Well…Mr. Kaiba…Of course, come in!"

With an atonal buzz the door unlocked. Kaiba opened the door and stepped in. A woman with large blue eyes, soft features, and thick, shiny brown hair pulled back into a ponytail stepped quickly down the stairs to greet him. She was wearing casual slacks and a pink blouse. She looked a little different up close than what he had thought when he saw her at the recital. She looked younger and more willowy.

"Please forgive my appearance, Mr. Kaiba. This is unexpected, and…"

"Please don't call me that," Kaiba thought he sounded snappish, and quickly added, "You don't need to call me mister."

The woman looked up at him quizzically. "What should I call you, then?"

For the first time in his life, Kaiba wished he were shorter. He felt conspicuous and exposed as this woman, a full foot shorter than he was, gazed up at him.

"You can call me Seto." Gone was the singularity of purpose he had felt earlier. He had not rehearsed any specific conversation, and had certainly not planned to have this woman call him Seto. Who was the last person, besides Mokuba, to call him Seto? The Prossers? His parents?

"Oh, okay, Seto." Téa's mother smiled, but he could tell that calling him "Seto" was just as weird for her as hearing it was for him. "Follow me."

He followed her back up the stairs to the apartment. It was roomy enough, and comfortable. The furnishings were attractive and well placed. A fluffy little white dog ran up and sniffed his shoes. It had a tail unlike anything Kaiba had seen before—a thick white plume that looked like a horse's. Its fox legs were long and slender.

"Ivan! Don't bother him!"

Kaiba looked down into the dog's shiny black eyes. "I didn't know Gardner had a dog."

"Oh yes, he's a terrier, but we think he also has a touch of Maltese. He's six years old, actually."

Kaiba felt a wave of unaccountable tenderness toward the dog. He reached down to pet it. Its fur was silky. _She probably brushes him every day, _he thought. The little animal stared at Kaiba with an impenetrable expression on its tiny, clever face. It stood, tail still, tolerating Kaiba's awkward petting. Kaiba couldn't bear touching it anymore and stood back up.

"So, were you working on a school project with Téa this year? Are you here to discuss the grade? She didn't mention…"

"No. Is your husband home too?"

Mrs. Gardner was silent long enough for him to look up at her. Her face was surprised, and even frightened. He thought fast.

"This is kind of important," he said. "I need to talk to both of you."

She licked her lips. "Let me call him." She vanished to the back of the apartment.

Although he strained his ears, Kaiba heard nothing. The terrible thought of Téa walking in now, when he wasn't ready, when it wasn't the right time, gave his gut another wrench.

"How silly of me!" Mrs. Gardner swept back into the kitchen. Now there was a touch of shrillness to her voice. "I forgot to offer you a drink! What would you like?"

Kaiba found himself on guard, a natural state he eased into. "Just water." He remembered to add "thank you," in time.

"My husband's on his way," Mrs. Gardner continued. A cabinet door slammed. "Any second now. Do you want ice, Mr Kai—Seto?"

"A few cubes. And thank you."

"Is my daughter on drugs?"

Kaiba jerked his head up, his mouth agape. Mrs. Gardner was staring at him, her dark blue eyes naked in their desperation.

"Is she? Have you seen her since she's been at the Dance Academy?"

"Briefly, but she's not…"

"What about an eating disorder?"

"I haven't seen her, Mrs. Gardner, but I'm sure she doesn't." He felt proud of that response. It was steady and sincere.

"Then….I'm sorry, but, why are you here?" Mrs. Gardner's voice was a conspiratorial whisper. "I mean, I know my daughter is involved with games, but not to the extent that _you_ would notice…" She shook her head. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just that I'm not exactly sure what we can give you…"

The door opened and closed. A wiry man with slightly disheveled hair came in, nervously wiping his glasses on his collared shirt. His black eyelashes were long and downy. He put his glasses back on and held out his hand toward Kaiba.

"Mr. Kaiba, it's an honor…"

"Don't." Mr. Gardner stopped in his tracks, his blue eyes widening.

"What I mean to say, Mr. Gardner, is that you don't have to call me Mr. Kaiba. You may call me Seto." That sick feeling returned. This man's daughter had been pinned beneath him. He, Kaiba, had pawed the bare breasts of Mr. Gardner's little girl.

"Why don't we sit down?" Mrs. Gardner suggested.

The couch was clean and comfortable, with deep cushions. Ivan jumped up on the couch next to Kaiba and stared at him with the same unreadable expression.

Kaiba decided to jump in. He took a sip of his water and looked at the Gardners, making sure to make eye contact with each of them. It was a trick he learned in business.

"I found out," he began, "through Yugi Moto, that Téa had been accepted to the Dance Academy, but had not received a scholarship. I took it upon myself to pay for your daughter's tuition.

"It was you!" Mrs. Gardner leaned back in her chair while Mr. Gardner leaned forward. Their eyes were wide and bright, almost childlike, and reminded Kaiba so much of their daughter. "Téa was thrilled. You can't even imagine!"

"I must request that you not tell your daughter it was I who paid for it."

Kaiba wanted to ask how Téa had reacted to the news. Had she been speechless and still, her eyes shining and her smile wide? Did she dance about the apartment, laughing? He wanted the Gardners to tell him more, and he couldn't ask. He also didn't want Téa to find out from anyone but himself.

"Whatever you wish," said Mr. Gardner, though he sounded perplexed.

"Your generosity is wonderful," Mrs. Gardner continued. She seemed a little teary-eyed in gratitude. This was a good sign. "What inspired you to give her such a gift?"

"She's very talented. Everyone knows that. I have seen her dance, and I didn't want to see that wasted," Kaiba took another sip of water. He stood up. He felt more comfortable standing during meetings.

"You see, I would like to court and possibly marry your daughter."

There. It was out. Bringing up marriage surprised even him. Still, he wasn't going to take it back. This is what Kisara wanted for him.

The Gardners stared at him for a disturbingly long time, their faces frozen, hers shocked, and his confused. He spoke first, and softly.

"Aren't you both a little young?"

"Owning my own company has made me mature quickly, Mr. Gardner. I have also been solely responsible for my younger brother's care for the past five years."

"Well, that makes sense, but I'm not sure if Téa is mature enough to be out on her own," Mr. Gardner responded.

"Forgive me for saying so, but perhaps you shouldn't underestimate your daughter's maturity. She is the caretaker of her friends, and has managed herself quite well as a female minority in a male dominated arena. As for being on her own, you obviously trust her enough to send her alone to a dance academy a city away for an entire summer."

"Well, we certainly have the utmost confidence in Téa, but it's not about just being financially stable, or being away from home for a few weeks at a time. You need to be emotionally mature, as well. At this age, neither of you can be certain about what you want just yet," Mrs. Gardner put in. "You are extremely impressive, and I don't doubt you take good care of your brother, but choosing a marriage partner might be a little too emotionally complex, even for a young man of your intelligence."

For a few moments Kaiba thought about what he had to say. "It might not be about marriage," he said. "We may decide not to. However, I am feeling rather strongly about taking your daughter for a wife." He realized he did. He could see himself so clearly with her, living in the mansion.

Mr. and Mrs. Gardner glanced at each other. Kaiba knew that they had shared the same thought. It was an almost miraculous thing to see. He had those moments with Mokuba, certainly, but seeing it between a man and a woman was fascinating.

"How well do you actually know our daughter, Mr. Kaiba?" Mr. Gardner asked, softly. He looked at Kaiba with gentle eyes.

Kaiba remembered his moments with Téa, how her body felt underneath his, her skin, her scent. He saw her looking at him with such sadness and pity in the closet, and out in the hallway after their encounter in the girl's restroom, even when he knew in those moments she hated him, as she should. He thought of how she stood in front of him to keep him from leaving the group in Noa's cyber world, her arms outstretched as if to embrace him, after all he had done. She had helped Mokuba escape Marik's clutches. Yes, Mokuba needed her. That was a thought to file away for future use.

"I know she is compassionate," he responded. "She is extremely warm, and very kindhearted."

"That is true." Mrs. Gardner said, leaning forward so she was in line with her husband, "but when you referred to my daughter earlier, you called her 'Gardner.' And you didn't even know she had a dog."

"Oh that," said Kaiba, thinking fast. "That's a terrible habit I picked up doing business. In business, first names are not used, I'm afraid. It's always a little impersonal."

"Our daughter won't want to see her marriage as a business. She's rather romantic."

"My relationship with your daughter will be based on an equal partnership, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner. In that sense it will be like a business. I respect her. I respect Téa," he said vehemently, as if saying it strongly enough will erase any thought that he had ever harmed their daughter out of their minds.

The Gardners were silent for a bit, gazing at him. It made him think of times he had seen other children cry, and the adult in charge wanted to help, but didn't know what to do. Mr. Gardner spoke first.

"Mr. Kaiba," he said, forsaking Kaiba's instructions. "Since you are a man of business, I will address you in a business-like way. Though what you did was very generous for our daughter, and we are grateful, I'm afraid we can't think of any other time when you were as kind. Now, I am in public relations, so I know about business, and I know that things must be done. It's survival of the fittest. However, the stories I've heard about you make me wonder about how you would treat our daughter, if you'll pardon my frankness. Please tell me where I'm wrong."

Kaiba realized his mouth was open. He shut it quickly. He thought of Kisara. _Please, _he thought. _Please. _

"A good businessman," he said, "knows to leave his business self in his office, where it belongs. My stepfather did not know this, so he was not a good businessman. It drove him mad at the end, as I'm sure you know." He felt a little triumphant. If they were going to point out elephants in the room, he would find bigger ones. "I am mature enough to acknowledge my own youth, Mr. Gardner. Any cutthroat business dealings I have done were committed under the mistaken notion that my stepfather was a good businessman, and a person to emulate. I no longer operate under such delusions."

Mr. Gardner did not look away. "Téa has told us that you are a bit of a bully."

Kaiba thought about what he said in the classroom that day, before he saw Téa with Wheeler in the hallway. He decided to lie. "Never to her. I let myself be my own age when playing games. It probably doesn't make sense to a girl, but that's how males my age are. We insult our opponents. I have received as well as given."

Mr. Gardner stood up and walked toward where Kaiba was standing. He stopped. They were almost nose- to -nose.

"I must say I'm not sure whether you're asking me for permission to marry my daughter, or simply informing me that you are. Asking for a daughter's hand is uncommon today, and if that's your intention, I must say I am rather touched. However, if you are simply telling me that you are going to marry my daughter, I have to say something. My daughter is a very young girl, from a middle class family. She is innocent and naïve, and those are things I can guess you are not."

"Rob," Mrs. Gardner said from the couch.

"I have a duty to protect my daughter, Mr. Kaiba. I don't know you except from newspaper articles and TV segments. So you can understand that I am reluctant to let my daughter marry into a life that is, you must admit, abnormal for a teenager to live. I don't want her to be tabloid fodder, and I don't want her to be your arm candy. "

Kaiba was stunned.

"I am not a pimp, Mr. Kaiba. I'm not going to hand my daughter off to you with no questions just because you are wealthy."

Kaiba bit his tongue. He felt his face heat up. This man was keeping him from his salvation, but at the same time, he felt a great respect for him. He had thought that he, at a point, respected Gozaburu. Now he realized he never really had. It was for this man, this middle-class P.R. guy living in an apartment complex, that Seto Kaiba felt his first feelings of genuine respect and honor.

Both Gardners were staring at him.

"Do you honestly think I want arm candy?" He finally replied. "I am in a position to help your daughter make her dreams come true. Do you see?" He raised his hands out, spreading them. "Have you ever heard of me behaving badly toward women? Of course you haven't." A gush of bile shot up his throat, but he swallowed it back down. "That is because I never have, Mr. Gardner. I've never even had a girlfriend." He took a sip of his water. "Do you really want to know why I feel so strongly toward your daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner? Why I want her to be happy? Because she helped save my little brother's life."

That shut them up and got them thinking. Mr. Gardner actually took a step back in surprise.

"My little brother, because he is my little brother, is in frequent danger of being kidnapped for ransom. One day, when my guards were lax, Mokuba was approached by a would-be kidnapper. Just as he was about to be overpowered, Téa stepped in and stopped it."

Mrs. Gardner's eyes were starry. "Téa rescued your brother?"

"Jesus," Mr. Gardner whispered, rubbing his face. "This just keeps getting more and more surreal."

"She did, Mrs. Gardner. And I want to repay her. Both my brother and I feel an intense loyalty toward her. I certainly know how surreal this is, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner. I certainly never thought I'd be in this position, talking to you. But it is real. Téa really rescued my brother, and we both want to do what we can for her."

"Oh my God," Mrs. Gardner folded her hands under her chin. "She could have been killed."

"I am well aware of that, Mrs. Gardner. Not even paying for ballet school can repay the debt I have to your daughter."

"What if she doesn't want to marry you?" Mr. Gardner said. "You can't make her want to marry you if she doesn't want to, or doesn't feel she's ready. You'd both be miserable."

This was the possibility that terrified Kaiba most. He could stand the rejection of her parents. He could stand the rejection of her friends. He was dreading the day when she might reject him.

"I'll give her time," he said. It pained him to say it. "We'll get to know each other better." He paused and breathed. If this was to be his penance, so be it. "Then she can make a decision."

Mr. Gardner sat back down. Mrs. Gardner looked from one to the other. "That's the right thing to do," she said. "She's very busy with the academy now, but when she comes back in August, you may come take her out, on group dates, to public places, that sort of thing."

Kaiba groaned inwardly. Hearing "group dates" reminded him of the next step he had to take.

"Perhaps you may have even moved on," said Mr. Gardner. There was no sarcasm; he was stating a fact. "It'll be a month. It's not uncommon for things to change in that short time."

Kaiba picked up his briefcase. "I thank you for speaking with me," he said. "But don't count on me losing interest."

It wasn't until he was back in the limo that his knees started to wobble and his hands started to tremble, and he noticed how hard his heart was beating, and all he could do was stare at his hands in wonder.


	36. Alpha Male

Alpha Male

Kaiba hated this.

It was bad enough that he had to kowtow to Yugi. Now, it appeared that he would have to suffer the Mutt's presence, as well, and Taylor's, and Bakura's. They were bent over the counter at Yugi's grandfather's game shop, engrossed in Duel Monsters. It was strange to see people playing Duel Monsters without Duel Disks. It was like seeing someone use a phone booth.

Kaiba pushed open the door to the shop. The tinkle of the bell didn't raise the boys' heads from the cards right away, which irritated Kaiba, not just from a personal standpoint, but a professional one. It was bad business to not acknowledge the customer.

Oh, but Wheeler was saying something, and God forbid anything interrupt Wheeler from making his point.

Wheeler made the point with a guffaw, followed by Yugi's "That's great, Joey!"

Kaiba wondered how Yugi was doing without his Spirit. Was he as weak as Kaiba himself was, without Kisara?

_ Kisara never owned my body, _Kaiba thought_. She didn't take me over. _

The comfortable feeling of superiority straightened Kaiba's spine and cooled his anxiety.

It was Bakura who finally looked up and saw him. The white-haired weakling was no longer a weakling. Without the parasite of the Thief King sucking away his vitality, his arm muscles had toned and defined themselves from one another, his shoulders were wider, and his neck was thicker. Though he was far from a body-builder, his physique radiated an athleticism that indicated speed and agility, not brute strength.

Pale eyebrows lifted over deep brown eyes, Bakura's warm grin of welcome was tinged with a sheepish guilt as he regarded Kaiba. He needn't have worried. The only thing Kaiba found Bakura guilty of was being weak enough to be possessed in the first place.

"Hello, Kaiba," Bakura said, his tone melodious and even. "May we help you?" Out of anyone else's mouth, this question would ooze sarcasm. Out of Bakura's, it was quite sincere.

Yugi, Wheeler, and Taylor glanced up then. Taylor looked back down at the cards, as if Kaiba was beneath his notice. Wheeler's eyes narrowed, and his nostril's dilated, to Kaiba's mild delight. However, none of these reactions mattered. What mattered was that Yugi was looking at him with curiosity and concern.

"Yugi, I need to speak with you. Alone."

"Hey, Rich Boy, anything you want to say to Yugi, you can say to all of us."

Kaiba glared at Wheeler, then turned back to Yugi. There must have been something in Kaiba's face, because Yugi came around the counter. Good. Yugi still jumped to oblige.

Kaiba turned and walked toward the front of the store, away from the counter, and turned to the side and wandered through the labyrinth of shelves. When he was as far away from the counter as he could be, he faced Yugi, who looked at him expectantly.

"What's going on, Kaiba? Is everything okay?"

"I'm not here to make small talk."

Yugi nodded quickly. He knew.

"There's something I want, Yugi. It's very important."

"Is Mokuba okay?"

"It has nothing to do with him, but if you must know, he's fine." Kaiba took a long deep breath and let it out. Then he looked back down at Yugi. "Ultimately, this is out of your hands. However, I see you in a gatekeeper position. What little sway you have, I intend to use."

"Well…I'll do anything I can." Yugi was getting more and more puzzled. "It would help if I knew exactly what was going on, though."

Kaiba drew himself up. "You'll keep this to yourself." There was no question in his voice.

"You can count on me to keep a confidence."

Kaiba stood on tiptoe and craned his neck to see over the shelves. Taylor was whispering to Wheeler and Bakura, undoubtedly about him. Their eyes flicked toward him, and then back to each other. Bakura leafed through the cards balanced on the palm of his hand, whistling softly.

Kaiba looked back at Yugi.

"It's Gardner. Téa."

"Téa?"

"Yes. I'm going to take her out. I'm probably going to marry her."

Kaiba had heard the word "gobsmacked" before, but had, oddly enough, never seen it on a person's face. Yugi was well and truly gobsmacked. His jaw hung, and one nostril flexed toward his eyebrow. He eyelids lifted and narrowed, and he moved his lips to say something, and then turned his head to look at Kaiba from his peripheral vision, as if this would reveal that this was a bogus Kaiba, an alien being in disguise.

"Why are you doing this?" He finally said.

"Because you're her best friend. She won't go out with me without a word from you."

"No!" Kaiba saw Wheeler, Taylor and Bakura jolt in their seats, their fight- or flight mechanisms cued. "This is a joke," Yugi continued, his voice dropped to a harsh hissing. "It's a joke, and I want to know why you're making this joke. It's not funny, Kaiba."

"It's not a joke, Yugi. Why would you think—"

"I know what you think of my friends. It's not enough for you to humiliate Joey? I'm sure this is really funny to you, coming here and saying that. What's next? You're going to go to Téa's house and play a prank on her too?'

"Yugi, this is not—"

"I won't let you! I won't let you go over there, and confuse Téa, and then embarrass her and laugh in her face!" Yugi was an inch away from Kaiba , standing at his full height, at Kaiba's chest. His fists were up. His face was red. His teeth were bared. Kaiba grabbed his fists.

"What the hell is going on?!" Taylor's breath, smelling of grape bubblegum, slammed into Kaiba before Taylor's body. He grabbed Kaiba by the shirt and pushed him backwards away from Yugi and into the shelves behind him.

Kaiba remembered pushing Téa into the wall in the girls' bathroom. He remembered the wall pushing her back into him, how secure he felt knowing that she couldn't go anywhere, not with the wall working for him.

The shelves dug into the back of his ribs. Wheeler stood now at Taylor's side, huffing through his nose, his eyes poker tips. Bakura stood behind Yugi, his arms crossed defensively across his chest. His eyes were dark and wary, torn between his innate peace-loving nature and responsibility toward his friends and saviors.

Kaiba closed his eyes and thought of Kisara. It brought some relief from the hard eyes and fists balled up against him, some soothing. He wanted to go to her, but he had been through this with himself before. He couldn't give up.

He opened his eyes.

"Yugi," he kept his voice very soft, for Yugi alone. Right now, he told himself, he and Yugi were the only ones in that room. This was a test he had to get through, to prove himself worthy of an audience with the gatekeeper.

"Yugi," he said. "Have them punch me."

Yugi ran his wrist over his eyes in exasperation. "What?"

"If it will prove this isn't a joke, then have them punch me. Have them beat me up."

Yugi's eyes widened. "Kaiba…"

"Do you honestly think I would risk these two breaking every bone in my face for a joke? This isn't a joke. They can go ahead and do it."

Even Wheeler and Taylor saw the logic in that. Their elbows dropped, and their fists pulled away slightly from his face, even if they didn't unclench. "I just need you to hear me out, Yugi."

"What isn't a joke?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah, what isn't a joke, Kaiba?" Wheeler pushed Taylor's shoulders to the side with his own so he could lean into Kaiba's face. He peered at Kaiba with malicious deliberation. "This is probably a trick." He directed this at Yugi, though he never took his eyes off of Kaiba.

Kaiba reached out and grabbed Wheeler's wrist. He pulled it toward him, placing Wheeler's knuckles below his right eye. He stared into Wheeler's eyes. He noticed that they were as much golden as they were brown. He had never noticed Wheeler's eye color before. They were, appropriately, puppy dog eyes.

"Go ahead, Wheeler," he said, softly. "Go ahead."

Wheeler cocked his head at Kaiba, like Yugi did, as if Kaiba had grown scales and a third eye. "Who are you?" His voice was just as soft as Kaiba's; the rage was replaced with confusion, and a little touch of fear. "What did you do with Kaiba?"

"Kaiba," Bakura spoke up. "Are you feeling ill? What is this about?"

Kaiba looked into Bakura's eyes next. Eye contact seemed to work. "I'm not ill. I need to speak to Yugi, in private. It's nothing for you to be concerned about." He wasn't being rude, only stating a fact.

_Maybe I should have gone to Yugi through Bakura_, he thought. _Bakura is a reasonably objective third party, Yugi trusts him, plus he owes me for Mokuba. _ The idea was such a good one, he felt like smacking himself for not thinking of it.

Yugi stood, studying Kaiba's face. Kaiba stared back.

Finally, Yugi spoke. "I'll talk to you, Kaiba."

"You sure, Yugi?' Taylor asked. His grip was still firm on Kaiba's shirt, but no longer white-knuckled and trembling.

"Yes. Please let him go."

"You're not going to talk to him alone," Wheeler said. "He's gone crazy. And what is this about a joke?"

"We'll stay in this room, Joey. You guys get back to the game. We're just going to talk for a little bit. I'll be right here. Kaiba won't try anything." Yugi's tone was placating.

Tristan let go, and he and Wheeler stepped back. They joined Bakura, who still had his arms crossed over his chest, and the three slowly backed toward the counter.

"You just raise your voice, Yugi, and we'll be right there," Wheeler said as they moved away. "And I've got my eyes on you, Kaiba. I may not be listening, but I'll be watching."

Neither Kaiba nor Yugi spoke until Wheeler, Taylor, and Bakura sat down and at least pretended to look at their cards again. Wheeler's gaze lingered the longest, glaring poison at Kaiba until Kaiba wanted to poke out his eyes.

_I give that weaselly little fuck the opportunity to punch me in the face, no holds barred, and he backs down? I was right about him all along. _

He turned back to Yugi, who was looking at him with long-suffering patience.

"I've already talked to her parents, Yugi. They said I could take her out."

"I would have loved to hear that conversation."

"I don't have to prove anything to you. Have you ever known me to be dishonest?"

"I just don't understand why, Kaiba."

Yugi stared up at him expectantly, as if Kaiba would explain it to him. Kaiba supposed he could tell the whole story, about seeing Téa's leg coming long from under her skirt while she lay on her back under that tree, so long ago. The glimpse of the strawberry speckled underpants. How Téa went up to him to apologize for her rudeness, and needing money, and he took the opportunity, the way Yugi never did, to explore and take pleasure in her. But he wasn't going to.

"I love Téa, Kaiba."

"I could've guessed that."

Yugi's lower lip trembled, and his eyes welled up large and liquid. "Then don't," he whispered.

Kaiba felt a sensation comparable to what he felt in the hallway with Téa, after the bathroom. Somehow, the lack of hate in Yugi's eyes made this more uncomfortable.

"Do you want Téa to be happy?" He asked. "Do you want her to have every thing she could ever want?"

"Of course I do."

"I can do everything for her. You know that."

"She's my best friend. I don't want to lose her."

"You think I'll keep you two apart?" Yugi glanced up at that. "I know how close you two are. I understand and accept that."

"You'd damn well better."

Kaiba could have sworn Yugi grew a little taller, his eyes hardened, and his voice deepened. But that was impossible. The Spirit was gone.

"And," Yugi continued, "if she tells you no, you better understand and accept that. You don't even know her, Kaiba. What makes you think she'll even say yes to you? I've known her since we were little. We love each other. As friends."

"How well do you know her, Yugi?" Kaiba's voice was calm and assured.

"Very well, Kaiba. Better than you ever will. "

Kaiba had to stifle a laugh. Yugi knew nothing.

"Yugi, I have one more thing to ask you."

Yugi had gone back to his short, big-eyed self. "What is it?"

"Did you and Téa ever kiss? Did you ever touch?"

Yugi darkened. "Kaiba, I'm not going to give you tips on how to seduce Téa. Téa is not going to go out with you just because you kiss her a certain way. She's not the kind of girl who can be just…"

"I'm not asking for tips. Answer me, Yugi."

Yugi crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged one shoulder. "We've hugged a lot, and we've held hands, and we've kissed each other on the cheeks. I repeat, Téa is not the kind of girl you seem to hope she is." Yugi's voice was self-righteous, but Kaiba could detect the pride running underneath it all.

Kaiba clenched his jaw on another laugh. The tendon under his cheekbone popped.

"Well, Yugi, if you respect her so much, why don't you let her make her own decision about this? I mean, if you two are meant to be together, she'll say no, right?"

Yugi obviously hadn't thought of that. He brightened. Kaiba had no idea he could use his strong powers of persuasion when it came to affairs of the heart. He had known exactly what to say. He decided to feed Yugi a little bit more.

"What's the worst that could happen, Yugi? I can tell how close you two are. I'm obviously at a disadvantage here. What are you afraid of?"

Yugi looked directly at Kaiba with his humongous, violet eyes. Those eyes were unnatural to Kaiba. They were like a toy's eyes, an alien's eyes. "Nothing," Yugi said, shrugging again. "But if you hurt her…"

"I never would. "

"I'll kill you, Kaiba," the sweet pipe of Yugi's voice was dead steady. "I'll kill you."

Kaiba held Yugi's gaze. He knew Yugi couldn't actually kill him—of course not—but Kaiba realized that he would try. He would try to kill him, for Téa's sake. Good for him. Kaiba knew what he himself, and his Blue Eyes White Dragon card, had done for Téa, and Téa alone, not just Téa as a friend in a group of friends.

"You have my word, Yugi. I would never hurt her. And if I do, and it will be unintentionally, you and your friends can rip me apart."

"She won't say yes to you."

"We'll see."

"She won't."

"We'll see."

Kaiba said these words to the door's handle as he strode past Yugi and out of the shop. She could feel Yugi's eyes on his back, and sensed the wave of energy that came from Joey, Taylor, and Bakura rushing from the counter and clustering around Yugi to pump him for the details of the conversation. He didn't give a shit what Yugi was reporting to them. He stepped smoothly through the open door of his limo and settled into his usual seat.

So, Yugi had hugged her, kissed her, held her hand. He let himself laugh then, a quiet laugh that didn't even open his mouth. He had done all those things too, more than Yugi. He had embraced Téa for what felt like hours, his face in her neck or her hair. He had held her hand, in this very limo. The memory of it made his breath catch.

He let his head fall back and catalogued the things he had that Yugi didn't. He had seen Téa naked. He had lifted her into his arms, a physical impossibility for Yugi. He had felt her legs, those long, smooth legs, tight around him.

He gritted his teeth and let his breath hiss out. He knew how her breasts curved under his hand. Yugi didn't. He had felt her heart beat under his palm. Yugi hadn't.

He had felt inside her. He knew what she felt like inside and out. Yugi could never imagine that. He would never know it. The facts, the objective facts, proved that he had a greater claim on something Yugi thought was his. He was the winner, the superior.

Kaiba's hips thrust, and he strained to keep them still. Funny how a short time ago, he would have answered his hips thrust for thrust with a rock. Right now, sitting in the limo, he felt his own maleness—his muscles, his blood, his sex. He never imagined his own body would give him the same rush of pride and power the God Cards did.

It was good.


End file.
